\  1 1  K  1 1  r  r\ 

LIBRARY 

UNIVWSITY  OF 


A  HAZARD 
OF  NEW  FORTUNES 


IfliwfmfrJ 


A  HAZARD 
OF  NEW  FORTUNES 


W.     D.     HOWELLS 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER  6-  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK   AND   LONDON 


IDAN  STACK 


Copyright,  1889,  by  W.  D.  HOWELLS 
Copyright,  1911,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS 


ILLUSTEATIONS 


W.    D.    HOWELLS    (1888)    WHEN    WRITING    "A    HAZARD    OF 

NEW  FORTUNES"  (PHOTOGRAVURE) Frontispiece 

THE  VAST  EDIFICE  BEETLING  LIKE  A  GRANITE  CRAG 

ABOVE  THEM Facing  p.  10 

MARCH  COMFORTED  HIMSELF  BY  CALLING  THE  BRIC-A- 
BRAC  JAMESCRACKS 52 

"ISN'T  THIS  MR.  DRYFOOS  FROM  MOFFITT?" 100 

"ISN'T  THIS  MR.  LINDAU?" 104 

WITH  MELA'S  HELP  SHE  WROTE  A  LETTER 362 

FULKERSON  HELPED  HIM  ON  WITH  HIS  OVERCOAT     .    .  432 

"BY  HEAVENS!    THIS  is  PILING  IT  UP!" "      468 


353 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 

THE  following  story  was  the  first  fruit  of  my  New 
York  life  when  I  began  to  live  it  after  my  quarter 
of  a  century  in  Cambridge  and  Boston,  ending  in 
1889 ;  and  I  used  my  own  transition  to  the  com 
mercial  metropolis  in  framing  the  experience  which 
was  wholly  that  of  my  supposititious  literary  adven 
turer.  He  was  a  character  whom,  with  his  wife,  I  have 
employed  in  some  six  or  eight  other  stories,  and  whom 
I  made  as  much  the  hero  and  heroine  of  Their  Wed 
ding  Journey  as  the  slight  fable  would  bear.  In  ventur 
ing  out  of  my  adoptive  New  England,  where  I  had  found 
myself  at  home  with  many  imaginary  friends,  I  found 
it  natural  to  ask  the  company  of  these  familiar  acquaint 
ances,  but  their  company  was  not  to  be  had  at  once  for 
the  asking.  When  I  began  speaking  of  them  as  Basil 
and  Isabel,  in  the  fashion  of  Their  Wedding  Jour 
ney,  they  would  not  respond  with  the  effect  of  early 
middle  age  which  I  desired  in  them.  They  remained 
wilfully,  not  to  say  woodenly,  the  young  bridal  pair 
of  that  romance,  without  the  promise  of  novel  function 
ing.  It  was  not  till  I  tried  addressing  them  as  March 
and  Mrs.  March  that  they  stirred  under  my  hand  with 
fresh  impulse,  and  set  about  the  work  assigned  them  as 
people  in  something  more  than  their  second  youth. 

The  scene  into  which  I  had  invited  them  to  figure 
filled  the  largest  canvas  I  had  yet  allowed  myself;  and, 
though  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  was  not  the  first 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 

story  I  had  written  with  the  printer  at  my  heels,  it 
was  the  first  which  took  its  own  time  to  prescribe  its 
own  dimensions.  I  had  the  general  design  well  in  mind 
when  I  began  to  write  it,  but  as  it  advanced  it  compelled 
into  its  course  incidents,  interests,  individualities, 
which  I  had  not  known  lay  near,  and  it  specialized 
and  amplified  at  points  which  I  had  not  always  meant 
to  touch,  though  I  should  not  like  to  intimate  anything 
mystical  in  the  fact.  It  became,  to  my  thinking,  the 
most  vital  of  my  fictions,  through  my  quickened  inter 
est  in  the  life  about  me,  at  a  moment  of  great  psycho 
logical  import.  We  had  passed  through  a  period  of 
strong  emotioning  in  the  direction  of  the  humaner  eco 
nomics,  if  I  may  phrase  it  so;  the  rich  seemed  not  so 
much  to  despise  the  poor,  the  poor  did  not  so  hopelessly 
repine.  The  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  painful  earth 
through  the  dreams  of  Henry  George,  through  the 
dreams  of  Edward  Bellamy,  through  the  dreams  of 
all  the  generous  visionaries  of  the  past,  seemed  not  im 
possibly  far  off.  That  shedding  of  blood  which  is  for 
the  remission  of  sins  had  been  symbolized  by  the  bombs 
and  scaffolds  of  Chicago,  and  the  hearts  of  those  who 
felt  the  wrongs  bound  up  with  our  rights,  the  slavery 
implicated  in  our  liberty,  were  thrilling  with  griefs  and 
hopes  hitherto  strange  to  the  average  American  breast. 
Opportunely  for  me  there  was  a  great  street-car  strike 
in  New  York,  and  the  story  began  to  find  its  way  to 
issues  nobler  and  larger  than  those  of  the  love-affairs 
common  to  fiction.  I  was  in  my  fifty-second  year  when 
I  took  it  up,  and  in  the  prime,  such  as  it  was,  of  my 
powers.  The  scene  which  I  had  chosen  appealed  pro 
digiously  to  me,  and  the  action  passed  as  nearly  with 
out  my  conscious  agency  as  I  ever  allow  myself  to  think 
such  things  happen. 

The  opening  chapters  were  written  in  a  fine,  old- 

vi 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 

fashioned  apartment  house  which  had  once  been  a  fam 
ily  house,  and  in  an  uppermost  room  of  which  I  could 
look  from  my  work  across  the  trees  of  the  little  park 
in  Stuyvesant  Square  to  the  towers  of  St.  George's 
Church.  Then  later  in  the  spring  of  1889  the  unfin 
ished  novel  was  carried  to  a  country  house  on  the  Bel- 
mont  border  of  Cambridge.  There  I  must  have  written 
very  rapidly  to  have  pressed  it  to  conclusion  before  the 
summer  ended.  It  came,  indeed,  so  easily  from  the  pen 
that  I  had  the  misgiving  which  I  always  have  of  things 
which  do  not  cost  me  great  trouble. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  book  with  which  I  amused 
myself  more  than  the  house-hunting  of  the  Marches 
when  they  were  placing  themselves  in  New  York ;  and 
if  the  contemporary  reader  should  turn  for  instruction 
to  the  pages  in  which  their  experience  is  detailed  I  as 
sure  him  that  he  may  trust  their  fidelity  and  accuracy  in 
the  article  of  New  York  housing  as  it  was  early  in  the 
last  decade  of  the  last  century :  I  mean,  the  housing  of 
people  of  such  moderate  means  as  the  Marches.  In  my 
zeal  for  truth  I  did  not  distinguish  between  reality  and 
actuality  in  this  or  other  matters — that  is,  one  was  as 
precious  to  me  as  the  other.  But  the  types  here 
portrayed  are  as  true  as  ever  they  were,  though  the 
world  in  which  they  were  finding  their  habitat  is  won 
derfully,  almost  incredibly  different  Yet  it  is  not 
wholly  different,  for  a  young  literary  pair  now  adven 
turing  in  New  York  might  easily  parallel  the  experience 
of  the  Marches  with  their  own,  if  not  for  so  little 
money;  many  phases  of  New  York  housing  are  better, 
but  all  are  dearer.  Other  aspects  of  the  material  citv 
have  undergone  a  transformation  much  more  wonder 
ful.  I  find  that  in  my  book  its  population  is  once  mod 
estly  spoken  of  as  two  millions,  but  now  in  twenty  years 
it  is  twice  as  great,  and  the  grandeur  as  well  as  grandi- 

vii 


BIBLIOGKAPHICAL 

osity  of  its  forms  is  doubly  apparent.  The  transitional 
public  that  then  moped  about  in  mildly  tinkling  horse- 
cars  is  now  hurried  back  and  forth  in  clanging  trolleys, 
in  honking  and  whirring  motors;  the  Elevated  road 
which  was  the  last  word  of  speed  is  undermined  by 
the  Subway,  shooting  its  swift  shuttles  through  the  sub 
terranean  woof  of  the  city's  haste.  From  these  feet 
let  the  witness  infer  our  whole  massive  Hercules,  a 
bulk  that  sprawls  and  stretches  beyond  the  rivers 
through  the  tunnels  piercing  their  beds  and  that  towers 
into  the  skies  with  innumerable  tops — a  Hercules  blent 
of  Briareus  and  Cerberus,  but  not  so  bad  a  monster  as 
it  seemed  then  to  threaten  becoming. 

Certain  hopes  of  truer  and  better  conditions  on  which 
my  heart  was  fixed  twenty  years  ago  are  not  less  dear, 
and  they  are  by  no  means  touched  with  despair,  though 
they  have  not  yet  found  the  fulfilment  which  I  would 
then  have  prophesied  for  them.  Events  have  not  wholly 
played  them  false ;  events  have  not  halted,  though  they 
have  marched  with  a  slowness  that  might  affect  a  young 
er  observer  as  marking  time.  They  who  were  then 
mindful  of  the  poor  have  not  forgotten  them,  and  what 
is  better  the  poor  have  not  often  forgotten  themselves 
in  violences  such  as  offered  me  the  material  of  tragedy 
and  pathos  in  my  story.  In  my  quality  of  artist  I  could 
not  regret  these,  and  I  gratefully  realize  that  they  of 
fered  me  the  opportunity  of  a  more  strenuous  action,  a 
more  impressive  catastrophe  than  I  could  have  achieved 
without  them.  They  tended  to  give  the  whole  fable 
dignity  and  doubtless  made  for  its  success  as  a  book. 
As  a  serial  it  had  crept  a  sluggish  course  before  a  pub 
lic  apparently  so  unmindful  of  it  that  no  rumor  of  its 
acceptance  or  rejection  reached  the  writer  during  the 
half  year  of  its  publication;  but  it  rose  in  book  form 
from  that  failure  and  stood  upon  its  feet  and  went  its 

viii 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 

way  to  greater  favor  than  any  book  of  his  had  yet  en 
joyed.  I  hope  that  my  recognition  of  the  fact  will 
not  seem  like  boasting,  but  that  the  reader  will  regard 
it  as  a  special  confidence  from  the  author  and  will  let 
it  go  no  farther. 

KITTEEY  POINT,  MAINE,  July,  1909. 


A   HAZARD   OF   NEW   FORTUNES 


"  Now,  you  think  this  thing  over,  March,  and  let 
me  know  the  last  of  next  week,"  said  Fulkerson.  He 
got  up  from  the  chair  which  he  had  been  sitting  astride, 
with  his  face  to  its  back,  and  tilting  toward  March 
on  its  hind-legs,  and  came  and  rapped  upon  his  table 
with  his  thin  bamboo  stick.  "  What  you  want  to  do 
is  to  get  out  of  the  insurance  business,  anyway.  You 
acknowledge  that  yourself.  You  never  liked  it,  and 
now  it  makes  you  sick ;  in  other  words,  it's  killing  you. 
You  ain't  an  insurance  man  by  nature.  You're  a  nat 
ural-born  literary  man,  and  you've  been  going  against 
the  grain.  Now,  I  offer  you  a  chance  to  go  with  the 
grain.  I  don't  say  you're  going  to  make  your  ever 
lasting  fortune,  but  I'll  give  you  a  living  salary,  and 
if  the  thing  succeeds  you'll  share  in  its  success.  We'll 
all  share  in  its  success.  That's  the  beauty  of  it.  I  tell 
you,  March,  this  is  the  greatest  idea  that  has  been  struck 
since  " — Fulkerson  stopped  and  searched  his  mind  for 
a  fit  image — "  since  the  creation  of  man." 

He  put  his  leg  up  over  the  corner  of  March's  table 
and  gave  himself  a  sharp  cut  on  the  thigh,  and  leaned 
forward  to  get  the  full  effect  of  his  words  upon  his 
listener. 

March  had  his  hands  clasped  together  behind  his 
head,  and  he  took  one  of  them  down  long  enough  to 
2  3 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

put  his  inkstand  and  mucilage  -  bottle  out  of  Fulker- 
son's  way.  After  many  years'  experiment  of  a  mus 
tache  and  whiskers,  he  now  wore  his  grizzled  beard 
full,  but  cropped  close ;  it  gave  him  a  certain  grimness, 
corrected  by  the  gentleness  of  his  eyes. 

"  Some  people  don't  think  much  of  the  creation 
of  man  nowadays.  Why  stop  at  that?  Why  not  say 
since  the  morning  stars  sang  together  ?" 

"  No,  sir ;  no,  sir !  I  don't  want  to  claim  too  much, 
and  I  draw  the  line  at  the  creation  of  man.  I'm  satis 
fied  with  that.  But  if  you  want  to  ring  the  morning 
stars  into  the  prospectus  all  right;  I  won't  go  back 
on  you." 

"  But  I  don't  understand  why  you've  set  your  mind 
on  me"  March  said.  "  I  haven't  had  any  magazine 
experience,  you  know  that;  and  I  haven't  seriously 
attempted  to  do  anything  in  literature  since  I  was 
married.  I  gave  up  smoking  and  the  Muse  together. 
I  suppose  I  could  still  manage  a  cigar,  but  I  don't 
believe  I  could — " 

"  Muse  worth  a  cent."  Fulkerson  took  the  thought 
out  of  his  mouth  and  put  it  into  his  own  words.  "  I 
know.  Well,  I  don't  want  you  to.  I  don't  care  if  you 
never  write  a  line  for  the  thing,  though  you  needn't 
reject  anything  of  yours,  if  it  happens  to  be  good,  on 
that  account.  And  I  don't  want  much  experience  in 
my  editor;  rather  not  have  it.  You  told  me,  didn't 
you,  that  you  used  to  do  some  newspaper  work  before 
you  settled  down  ?" 

"Yes;  I  thought  my  lines  were  permanently  cast 
in  those  places  once.  It  was  more  an  accident  than 
anything  else  that  I  got  into  the  insurance  business. 
I  suppose  I  secretly  hoped  that  if  I  made  my  living 
by  something  utterly  different,  I  could  come-  more 
freshly  to  literature  proper  in  my  leisure." 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  see ;  and  you  found  the  insurance  business  too 
many  for  you.  Well,  anyway,  you've  always  had  a 
hankering  for  the  inkpots;  and  the  fact  that  you  first 
gave  me  the  idea  of  this  thing  shows  that  you've  done 
more  or  less  thinking  about  magazines." 

"  Yes— less." 

"  Well,  all  right.  Now  don't  you  be  troubled.  I 
know  what  I  want,  generally  speaking,  and  in  this 
particular  instance  I  want  you.  I  might  get  a  man 
of  more  experience,  but  I  should  probably  get  a  man 
of  more  prejudice  and  self-conceit  along  with  him,  and 
a  man  with  a  following  of  the  literary  hangers-on  that 
are  sure  to  get  round  an  editor  sooner  or  later.  I  want 
to  start  fair,  and  I've  found  out  in  the  syndicate  busi 
ness  all  the  men  that  are  worth  having.  But  they 
know  me,  and  they  don't  know  you,  and  that's  where 
we  shall  have  the  pull  on  them.  They  won't  be  able 
to  work  the  thing.  Don't  you  be  anxious  about  the 
experience.  I've  got  experience  enough  of  my  own  to 
run  a  dozen  editors.  What  I  want  is  an  editor  who 
has  taste,  and  you've  got  it ;  and  conscience,  and  you've 
got  it;  and  horse  sense,  and  you've  got  that.  And 
I  like  you  because  you're  a  Western  man,  and  I'm 
another.  I  do  cotton  to  a  Western  man  when  I  find 
him  off  East  here,  holding  his  own  with  the  best  of  'em, 
and  showing  'em  that  he's  just  as  much  civilized  as 
they  are.  We  both  know  what  it  is  to  have  our  bright 
home  in  the  setting  sun ;  heigh  ?" 

"  I  think  we  Western  men  who've  come  East  are 
apt  to  take  ourselves  a  little  too  objectively  and  to 
feel  ourselves  rather  more  representative  than  we  need," 
March  remarked. 

Fulkerson  was  delighted.  "  You've  hit  it !  We  do ! 
We  are !" 

"  And  as  for  holding  my  own,  I'm  not  very  proud 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  what  I've  done  in  that  way;  it's  been  very  little 
to  hold.  But  I  know  what  you  mean,  Fulkerson,  and 
I've  felt  the  same  thing  myself;  it  warmed  me  toward 
you  when  we  first  met.  I  can't  help  suffusing  a  little 
to  any  man  when  I  hear  that  he  was  born  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Alleghanies.  It's  perfectly  stupid.  I  de 
spise  the  same  thing  when  I  see  it  in  Boston  people." 

Fulkerson  pulled  first  one  of  his  blond  whiskers 
and  then  the  other,  and  twisted  the  end  of  each  into 
a  point,  which  he  left  to  untwine  itself.  He  fixed 
March  with  his  little  eyes,  which  had  a  curious  in 
nocence  in  their  cunning,  and  tapped  the  desk  im 
mediately  in  front  of  him.  "  What  I  like  about  you 
is  that  you're  broad  in  your  sympathies.  The  first 
time  I  saw  you,  that  night  on  the  Quebec  boat,  I  said 
to  myself :  '  There's  a  man  I  want  to  know.  There's 
a  human  being.'  I  was  a  little  afraid  of  Mrs.  March 
and  the  children,  but  I  felt  at  home  with  you — thor 
oughly  domesticated — before  I  passed  a  word  with  you ; 
and  when  you  spoke  first,  and  opened  up  with  a  joke 
over  that  fellow's  tableful  of  light  literature  and  Ind 
ian  moccasins  and  birch-bark  toy  canoes  and  stereo 
scopic  views,  I  knew  that  we  were  brothers — spiritual 
twins.  I  recognized  the  Western  style  of  fun,  and  I 
thought,  when  you  said  you  were  from  Boston,  that  it 
was  some  of  the  same.  But  I  see  now  that  its  being 
a  cold  fact,  as  far  as  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
count,  is  just  so  much  gain.  You  know  both  sections, 
and  you  can  make  this  thing  go,  from  ocean  to  ocean." 

"  We  might  ring  that  inlo  the  prospectus,  too," 
March  suggested,  with  a  smile.  "  You  might  call 
the  thing  From  Sea  to  Sea.  By-the-way?  what  are 
you  going  to  call  it  ?" 

"  I  haven't  decided  yet ;  that's  one  of  the  things 
I  wanted  to  talk  with  you  about.  I  had  thought  of 

6 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

The  Syndicate;  but  it  sounds  kind  of  dry,  and  doesn't 
seem  to  cover  the  ground  exactly.  I  should  like  some 
thing  that  would  express  the  co-operative  character  of 
the  thing,  but  I  don't  know  as  I  can  get  it." 

"  Might  call  it  The  Mutual" 

"  They'd  think  it  was  an  insurance  paper.  N"o,  that 
won't  do.  But  Mutual  comes  pretty  near  the  idea.  If 
we  could  get  something  like  that,  it  would  pique  curi 
osity;  and  then  if  we  could  get  paragraphs  afloat  ex 
plaining  that  the  contributors  were  to  be  paid  according 
to  the  sales,  it  would  be  a  first-rate  ad." 

He  bent  a  wide,  anxious,  inquiring  smile  upon 
March,  who  suggested,  lazily :  "  You  might  call  it 
The  Round  -  Robin.  That  would  express  the  central 
idea  of  irresponsibility.  As  I  understand,  everybody 
is  to  share  the  profits  and  be  exempt  from  the  losses. 
Or,  if  I'm  wrong,  and  the  reverse  is  true,  you  might 
call  it  The  Army  of  Martyrs.  Come,  that  sounds  at 
tractive,  Fulkerson!  Or  what  do  you  think  of  The 
Fifth  Wheel?  That  would  forestall  the  criticism  that 
there  are  too  many  literary  periodicals  already.  Or, 
if  you  want  to  put  forward  the  idea  of  complete  in 
dependence,  you  could  call  it  The  Free  Lance;  or — " 

"  Or  The  Hog  on  Ice — either  stand  up  or  fall  down, 
you  know,"  Fulkerson  broke  in  coarsely.  "  But  we'll 
leave  the  name  of  the  magazine  till  we  get  the  editor. 
I  see  the  poison's  beginning  to  work  in  you,  March; 
and  if  I  had  time  I'd  leave  the  result  to  time.  But  I 
haven't.  I've  got  to  know  inside  of  the  next  week. 
To  come  down  to  business  with  you,  March,  I  shaVt 
start  this  thing  unless  I  can  get  you  to  take  hold  of  it." 

He  seemed  to  expect  some  acknowledgment,  and 
March  said,  "Well,  that's  very  nice  of  you,  Fulker 
son." 

"  No,  sir ;  no,  sir !    I've  always  liked  you  and  wanted 

7 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

you  ever  since  we  met  that  first  night.  I  had  this  thing 
inchoatelj  in  my  mind  then,  when  I  was  telling  yon 
about  the  newspaper  syndicate  business — beautiful  vi 
sion  of  a  lot  of  literary  fellows  breaking  loose  from 
the  bondage  of  publishers  and  playing  it  alone — 

"  You  might  call  it  The  Lone  Hand;  that  would  be 
attractive/'  March  interrupted.  "  The  whole  West 
would  know  what  you  meant." 

Fulkerson  was  talking  seriously,  and  March  was  lis 
tening  seriously;  but  they  both  broke  off  and  laughed. 
Fulkerson  got  down  off  the  table  and  made  some  turns 
about  the  room.  It  was  growing  late;  the  Octo 
ber  sun  had  left  the  top  of  the  tall  windows;  it  was 
still  clear  day,  but  it  would  soon  be  twilight;  they  had 
been  talking  a  long  time.  Fulkerson  came  and  stood 
with  his  little  feet  wide  apart,  and  bent  his  little  lean, 
square  face  on  March.  "  See  here !  How  much  do 
you  get  out  of  this  thing  here,  anyway  ?" 

"  The  insurance  business  ?"  March  hesitated  a  mo 
ment  and  then  said,  with  a  certain  effort  of  reserve, 
"  At  present  about  three  thousand."  He  looked  up  at 
Fulkerson  with  a  glance,  as  if  he  had  a  mind  to  en 
large  upon  the  fact,  and  then  dropped  his  eyes  without 
saying  more. 

Whether  Fulkerson  had  not  thought  it  so  much  or 
not,  he  said :  "  Well,  I'll  give  you  thirty-five  hundred. 
Come !  And  your  chances  in  the  success." 

"  We  won't  count  the  chances  in  the  success.  And 
I  don't  believe  thirty-five  hundred  would  go  any  further 
in  New  York  than  three  thousand  in  Boston." 

"  But  you  don't  live  on  three  thousand  here  ?" 

"  "No ;  my  wife  has  a  little  property." 

"  Well,  she  won't  lose  the  income  if  you  go  to  New 
York.  I  suppose  you  pay  ten  or  twelve  hundred  a  year 
for  your  house  here.  You  can  get  plenty  of  flats  in 

8 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

New  York  for  the  same  money;  and  I  understand  you 
can  get  all  sorts  of  provisions  for  less  than  you  pay 
now — three  or  four  cents  on  the  pound.  Come  I" 

This  was  by  no  means  the  first  talk  they  had  had 
about  the  matter;  every  three  or  four  months  during 
the  past  two  years  the  syndicate  man  had  dropped  in 
upon  March  to  air  the  scheme  and  to  get  his  impres 
sions  of  it.  This  had  happened  so  often  that  it  had 
come  to  be  a  sort  of  joke  between  them.  But  now 
Fulkerson  clearly  meant  business,  and  March  had  a 
struggle  to  maintain  himself  in  a  firm  poise  of  refusal. 

"  I  dare  say  it  wouldn't — or  it  needn't — cost  so  very 
much  more,  but  I  don't  want  to  go  to  New  York;  or 
my  wife  doesn't.  It's  the  same  thing." 

"  A  good  deal  samer,"  Fulkerson  admitted. 

March  did  not  quite  like  his  candor,  and  he  went 
on  with  dignity.  "  It's  very  natural  she  shouldn't. 
She  has  always  lived  in  Boston;  she's  attached  to  the 
place.  Now,  if  you  were  going  to  start  The  Fifth 
Wheel  in  Boston — " 

Fulkerson  slowly  and  sadly  shook  his  head,  but  de 
cidedly.  "  Wouldn't  do.  You  might  as  well  say  St. 
Louis  or  Cincinnati.  There's  only  one  city  that  belongs 
to  the  whole  country,  and  that's  N"ew  York." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  sighed  March ;  "  and  Boston  belongs 
to  the  Bostonians,  but  they  like  you  to  make  yourself 
at  home  while  you're  visiting." 

"  If  you'll  agree  to  make  phrases  like  that,  right 
along,  and  get  them  into  The  Round-Robin  somehow, 
I'll  say  four  thousand,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  You  think 
it  over  now,  March.  You  talk  it  over  with  Mrs. 
March;  I  know  you  will,  anyway;  and  I  might  as 
well  make  a  virtue  of  advising  you  to  do  it.  Tell  her 
I  advised  you  to  do  it,  and  you  let  me  know  before 

next  Saturday  what  you've  decided." 

9 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

March  shut  down  the  rolling  top  of  his  desk  in  the 
corner  of  the  room,  and  walked  Fulkerson  out  before 
him.  It  was  so  late  that  the  last  of  the  chore-women 
who  washed  down  the  marble  halls  and  stairs  of  the 
great  building  had  wrung  out  her  floor-cloth  and  de 
parted,  leaving  spotless  stone  and  a  clean,  damp  smell 
in  the  darkening  corridors  behind  her. 

"  Couldn't  offer  you  such  swell  quarters  in  New 
York,  March,"  Fulkerson  said,  as  he  went  tack-tacking 
down  the  steps  with  his  small  boot-heels.  "  But  I've 
got  my  eye  on  a  little  house  round  in  West  Eleventh 
Street  that  I'm  going  to  fit  up  for  my  bachelor's  hall 
in  the  third  story,  and  adapt  for  The  Lone  Hand  in 
the  first  and  second,  if  this  thing  goes  through ;  and  I 
guess  we'll  be  pretty  comfortable.  It's  right  on  the 
Sand  Strip — no  malaria  of  any  kind." 

"  I  don't  know  that  I'm  going  to  share  its  salubrity 
with  you  yet,"  March  sighed,  in  an  obvious  travail 
which  gave  F^ulkerson  hopes. 

"  Oh  yes,  you  are,"  he  coaxed.  "  Now,  you  talk  it 
over  with  your  wife.  You  give  her  a  fair,  unprej 
udiced  chance  at  the  thing  on  its  merits,  and  I'm  very 
much  mistaken  in  Mrs.  March  if  she  doesn't  tell  you 
to  go  in  and  win.  We're  bound  to  win !" 

They  stood  on  the  outside  steps  of  the  vast  edifice 
beetling  like  a  granite  crag  above  them,  with  the  stone 
groups  of  an  allegory  of  life-insurance  foreshortened 
in  the  bas-relief  overhead.  March  absently  lifted  his 
eyes  to  it.  It  was  suddenly  strange  after  so  many 
years'  familiarity,  and  so  was  the  well-known  street  in 
its  Saturday-evening  solitude.  He  asked  himself,  with 
prophetic  homesickness,  if  it  were  an  omen  of  what 
was  to  be.  But  he  only  said,  musingly:  "  A  fortnight 
ly.  You  know  that  didn't  work  in  England.  The 

Fortnightly  is  published  once  a  month  now." 

10 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  It  works  in  France,"  Fulkerson  retorted.  "  Tlie 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  is  still  published  twice  a 
month.  I  guess  we  can  make  it  work  in  America — 
with  illustrations." 

"  Going  to  have  illustrations  ?" 

"  My  dear  boy !  What  are  you  giving  me  ?  Do  I 
look  like  the  sort  of  lunatic  who  would  start  a  thing 
in  the  twilight  of  the  nineteenth  century  without  illus 
trations  ?  Come  off  1" 

"  Ah,  that  complicates  it !  I  don't  know  anything 
about  art."  March's  look  of  discouragement  confessed 
the  hold  the  scheme  had  taken  upon  him. 

"  I  don't  want  you  to !"  Fulkerson  retorted.  "  Don't 
you  suppose  I  shall  have  an  art  man  ?" 

"  And  will  they — the  artists — work  at  a  reduced 
rate,  too,  like  the  writers,  with  the  hopes  of  a  share 
in  the  success  ?" 

"  Of  course  they  will !  And  if  I  want  any  par 
ticular  man,  for  a  card,  I'll  pay  him  big  money  be 
sides.  But  I  can  get  plenty  of  first-rate  sketches  on 
my  own  terms.  You'll  see !  They'll  pour  in !" 

"  Look  here,  Fulkerson,"  said  March,  "  you'd  better 
call  this  fortnightly  of  yours  The  Madness  of  the  Half- 
Moon;  or  Bedlam  Broke  Loose  wouldn't  be  bad !  Why 
do  you  throw  away  all  your  hard  earnings  on  such  a 
crazy  venture?  Don't  do  it!"  The  kindness  which 
March  had  always  felt,  in  spite  of  his  wife's  first  mis 
givings  and  reservations,  for  the  merry,  hopeful,  slangy, 
energetic  little  creature  trembled  in  his  voice.  They 
had  both  formed  a  friendship  for  Fulkerson  during 
the  week  they  were  together  in  Quebec.  When  he  was 
not  working  the  newspapers  there,  he  went  about  with 
them  over  the  familiar  ground  they  were  showing  their 
children,  and  was  simply  grateful  for  the  chance,  as 
well  as  very  entertaining  about  it  all.  The  children 

11 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

liked  him,  too ;  when  the;y  got  the  clew  to  his  intention, 
and  found  that  he  was  not  quite  serious  in  many  of 
the  things  he  said,  they  thought  he  was  great  fun. 
They  were  always  glad  when  their  father  brought  him 
home  on  the  occasion  of  Fulkerson' s  visits  to  Boston; 
and  Mrs.  March,  though  of  a  charier  hospitality,  wel 
comed  Fulkerson  with  a  grateful  sense  of  his  admira 
tion  for  her  husband.  He  had  a  way  of  treating  March 
with  deference,  as  an  older  and  abler  man,  and  of 
qualifying  the  freedom  he  used  toward  every  one  with 
an  implication  that  March  tolerated  it  voluntarily, 
which  she  thought  very  sweet  and  even  refined. 

"  Ah,  now  you're  talking  like  a  man  and  a  brother," 
said  Fulkerson.  "  Why,  March,  old  man,  do  you  sup 
pose  I'd  come  on  here  and  try  to  talk  you  into  this 
thing  if  I  wasn't  morally,  if  I  wasn't  perfectly,  sure 
of  success?  There  isn't  any  if  or  and  about  it.  I 
know  my  ground,  every  inch;  and  I  don't  stand  alone 
on  it,"  he  added,  with  a  significance  which  did  not 
escape  March.  "When  you've  made  up  your  mind  I 
can  give  you  the  proof;  but  I'm  not  at  liberty  now  to 
say  anything  more.  I  tell  you  it's  going  to  be  a  tri 
umphal  march  from  the  word  go,  'with  coffee  and  lemon 
ade  for  the  procession  along  the  whole  line.  All  you've 
got  to  do  is  to  fall  in."  He  stretched  out  his  hand  to 
March.  "  You  let  me  know  as  soon  as  you  can." 

March  deferred  taking  his  hand  till  he  could  ask, 
"  Where  are  you  going  ?" 

"Parker  House.  Take  the  eleven  for  New  York 
to-night." 

"  I  thought  I  might  walk  your  way."  March  looked 
at  his  watch.  "But  I  shouldn't  have  time.  Good 
bye!" 

He  now  let  Fulkerson  have  his  hand,  and  they  ex 
changed  a  cordial  pressure.  Fulkerson  started  away 

12 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

at  a  quick,  light  pace.  Half  a  block  off  he  stopped* 
turned  round,  and,  seeing  March  still  standing  where 
he  had  left  him,  he  called  back,  joyously,  "  I've  got  the 
name !" 

"What?" 

"  Every  Other  Week." 

"  It  isn't  bad." 

"  Ta-ta !" 


II 


ALL  the  way  up  to  the  South  End  March  mentally 
prolonged  his  talk  with  Fulkerson,  and  at  his  door  in 
Nankeen  Square  he  closed  the  parley  with  a  plump 
refusal  to  go  to  New  York  on  any  terms.  His  daugh 
ter  Bella  was  lying  in  wait  for  him  in  the  hall,  and  she 
threw  her  arms  round  his  neck  with  the  exuberance  of 
her  fourteen  years  and  with  something  of  the  histrionic 
intention  of  her  sex.  lie  pressed  on,  with  her  clinging 
about  him,  to  the  library,  and,  in  the  glow  of  his  de 
cision  against  Fulkerson,  kissed  his  wife,  where  she  sat 
by  the  study  lamp  reading  the  Transcript  through  her 
first  pair  of  eye  -  glasses :  it  was  agreed  in  the  family 
that  she  looked  distinguished  in  them,  or,  at  any  rate, 
cultivated.  She  took  them  off  to  give  him  a  glance  of 
question,  and  their  son  Tom  looked  up  from  his  book 
for  a  moment;  he  was  in  his  last  year  at  the  high- 
school,  and  was  preparing  for  Harvard. 

"  I  didn't  get  away  from  the  office  till  half  -  past 
five,"  March  explained  to  his  wife's  glance,  "  and  then 
I  walked.  I  suppose  dinner's  waiting.  I'm  sorry,  but 
I  won't  do  it  any  more." 

At  table  he  tried  to  be  gay  with  Bella,  who  babbled 
at  him  with  a  voluble  pertness  which  her  brother  had 
often  advised  her  parents  to  check  in  her,  unless  they 
wanted  her  to  be  universally  despised. 

"  Papa !"  she  shouted  at  last,  "  you're  not  listening!" 

As  soon  as  possible  his  wife  told  the  children  they 

14 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

might  be  excused.  Then  she  asked,  "  What  is  it, 
Basil  ?" 

"  What  is  what  ?"  he  retorted,  with  a  specious  bright 
ness  that  did  not  avail. 

"  What  is  on  your  mind  ?" 

"  How  do  you  know  there's  anything  ?" 

"  Your  kissing  me  so  when  you  came  in,  for  one 
thing." 

"  Don't  I  always  kiss  you  when  I  come  in  ?" 

"  Not  now.  I  suppose  it  isn't  necessary  any  more. 
Cela  va  sans  kaiser." 

"  Yes,  I  guess  it's  so ;  wre  get  along  without  the  sym 
bolism  now."  He  stopped,  but  she  knew  that  he  had 
not  finished. 

"Is  it  about  your  business  ?  Have  they  done  any 
thing  more?" 

"  No ;  I'm  still  in  the  dark.  I  don't  know  whether 
they  mean  to  supplant  me,  or  whether  they  ever  did. 
But  I  wasn't  thinking  about  that.  Fulkerson  has  been 
to  see  me  again." 

"  Fulkerson  ?"  She  brightened  at  the  name,  and 
March  smiled,  too.  "  Why  didn't  you  bring  him  to 
dinner  ?" 

"  I  wanted  to  talk  with  you.  Then  you  do  like 
him  ?" 

"  What  has  that  got  to  do  with  it,  Basil  ?" 

"  Nothing !  nothing !  That  is,  he  was  boring  away 
about  that  scheme  of  his  again.  He's  got  it  into  definite 
shape  at  last." 

"What  shape?" 

March  outlined  it  for  her,  and  his  wife  seized  its 
main  features  with  the  intuitive  sense  of  affairs  which 
makes  women  such  good  business-men  when  they  will 
let  it. 

"  It  sounds  perfectly  crazy,"  she  said,  finally.  "  But 

15 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

it  mayn't  be.  The  only  thing  I  didn't  like  about  Mr. 
Fulkerson  was  his  always  wanting  to  chance  things. 
But  what  have  you  got  to  do  with  it?" 

"What  have  I  got  to  do  with  it?"  March  toyed 
with  the  delay  the  question  gave  him;  then  he  said, 
with  a  sort  of  deprecatory  laugh :  "  It  seems  that  Ful 
kerson  has  had  his  eye  on  me  ever  since  we  met  that 
night  on  the  Quebec  boat.  I  opened  tip  pretty  freely 
to  him,  as  you  do  to  a  man  you  never  expect  to  see 
again,  and  when  I  found  he  was  in  that  newspaper 
syndicate  business  I  told  him  about  my  early  literary 
ambitions — " 

"  You  can't  say  that  I  ever  discouraged  them,  Basil," 
his  wife  put  in.  "  I  should  have  been  willing,  any 
time,  to  give  up  everything  for  them." 

"  Well,  he  says  that  I  first  suggested  this  brilliant 
idea  to  him.  Perhaps  I  did ;  I  don't  remember.  When 
he  told  me  about  his  supplying  literature  to  newspapers 
for  simultaneous  publication,  he  says  I  asked :  l  Why 
not  apply  the  principle  of  co-operation  to  a  magazine, 
and  run  it  in  the  interest  of  the  contributors  ?'  and  that 
set  him  to  thinking,  and  he  thought  out  his  plan  of  a 
periodical  which  should  pay  authors  and  artists  a  low 
price  outright  for  their  work  and  give  them  a  chance 
of  the  profits  in  the  way  of  a  percentage.  After  all,  it 
isn't  so  very  different  from  the  chances  an  author  takes 
when  he  publishes  a  book.  And  Fulkerson  thinks  that 
the  novelty  of  the  thing  would  pique  public  curiosity, 
if  it  didn't  arouse  public  sympathy.  'And  the  long 
and  short  of  it  is,  Isabel,  that  he  wants  me  to  help 
edit  it." 

"To  edit  it?"  His  wife  caught  her  breath,  and 
she  took  a  little  time  to  realize  the  fact,  while  she 
stared  hard  at  her  husband  to  make  sure  he  was  not 
joking. 

10 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Yes.  He  says  lie  owes  it  all  to  me ;  that  I  in 
vented  the  idea — the  germ — the  microbe." 

His  wife  had  now  realized  the  fact,  at  least  in  a 
degree  that  excluded  trifling  with  it.  "  That  is  very 
honorable  of  Mr.  Fulkerson ;  and  if  he  owes  it  to  you, 
it  was  the  least  he  could  do."  Having  recognized  her 
husband's  claim  to  the  honor  done  him,  she  began  to 
kindle  with  a  sense  of  the  honor  itself  and  the  value  of 
the  opportunity.  "  It's  a  very  high  compliment  to 
you,  Basil — a  very  high  compliment.  And  you  could 
give  up  this  wretched  insurance  business  that  you've 
always  hated  so,  and  that's  making  you  so  unhappy 
now  that  you  think  they're  going  to  take  it  from  you. 
Give  it  up  and  take  Mr.  Fulkerson's  offer !  It's  a  per 
fect  interposition,  coming  just  at  this  time!  Why, 
do  it !  Mercy !"  she  suddenly  arrested  herself,  "  he 
wouldn't  expect  you  to  get  along  on  the  possible 
profits?"  Her  face  expressed  the  awfulness  of  the 
notion. 

March  smiled  reassuringly,  and  waited  to  give  him 
self  the  pleasure  of  the  sensation  he  meant  to  give  her. 
"  If  I'll  make  striking  phrases  for  it  and  edit  it,  too, 
he'll  give  me  four  thousand  dollars." 

He  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and  stuck  his  hands 
deep  into  his  pockets,  and  watched  his  wife's  face, 
luminous  with  the  emotions  that  flashed  through  her 
mind — doubt,  joy,  anxiety. 

"  Basil !  You  don't  mean  it !  Why,  lake  it!  Take 
it  instantly!  Oh,  what  a  thing  to  happen!  Oil,  what 
luck!  But  you  deserve  it,  if  you  first  suggested  it. 
What  an  escape,  what  a  triumph  over  all  those  hate 
ful  insurance  people!  Oh,  Basil,  I'm  afraid  he'll 
change  his  mind !  You  ought  to  have  accepted  on  the 
spot.  You  might  have  known  I  would  approve,  and 
you  could  so  easily  have  taken  it  back  if  I  didn't.  Tele- 

17 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

graph  him  now!  Run  right  out  with  the  despatch! 
Or  we  can  send  Tom  I" 

In  these  imperatives  of  Mrs.  March's  there  was  al 
ways  much  of  the  conditional.  She  meant  that  he 
should  do  what  she  said,  if  it  were  entirely  right; 
and  she  never  meant  to  be  considered  as  having  urged 
him. 

"  And  suppose  his  enterprise  went  wrong  ?"  her  hus 
band  suggested. 

"  It  won't  go  wrong.  Hasn't  he  made  a  success  of 
his  syndicate  ?" 

"  He  says  so — yes." 

"  Very  well,  then,  it  stands  to  reason  that  he'll  suc 
ceed  in  this,  too.  He  wouldn't  undertake  it  if  he  didn't 
know  it  would  succeed ;  he  must  have  capital." 

"  It  will  take  a  great  deal  to  get  such  a  thing  going ; 
and  even  if  he's  got  an  Angel  behind  him — " 

She*  caught  at  the  word — "  An  Angel  ?" 

"  It's  what  the  theatrical  people  call  a  financial 
backer.  He  dropped  a  hint  of  something  of  that 
kind." 

"  Of  course,  he's  got  an  Angel,"  said  his  wife,  prompt 
ly  adopting  the  word.  "  And  even  if  he  hadn't*  still, 
Basil,  I  should  be  willing  to  have  you  risk  it.  The 
risk  isn't  so  great,  is  it?  We  shouldn't  be  ruined  if 
it  failed  altogether.  With  our  stocks  we  have  two 
thousand  a  year,  anyway,  and  we  could  pinch  through 
on  that  till  you  got  into  some  other  business  afterward, 
especially  if  we'd  saved  something  out  of  your  salary 
while  it  lasted.  Basil,  I  want  you  to  try  it!  I  know 
it  will  give  you  a  new  lease  of  life  to  have  a  congenial 
occupation."  March  laughed,  but  his  wife  persisted. 
"  I'm  all  for  your  trying  it,  Basil ;  indeed  I  am.  If 
it's  an  experiment,  you  can  give  it  up." 

"  It  can  give  me  up,  too." 

18 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FOETUNES 

"  Oh,  nonsense !  I  guess  there's  not  much  fear  of 
that.  Now,  I  want  you  to  telegraph  Mr.  Fulkerson, 
so  that  he'll  find  the  despatch  ivaiting  for  him  when 
he  gets  to  New  York.  I'll  take  the  whole  responsibility, 
Basil,  and  I'll  risk  all  the  consequences." 
3 


Ill 


MARCH'S  face  had  sobered  more  and  more  as  she 
followed  one  hopeful  burst  with  another,  and  now  it 
expressed  a  positive  pain.  But  he  forced  a  smile  and 
said :  "  There's  a  little  condition  attached.  Where  did 
you  suppose  it  was  to  be  published  ?" 

"  Why,  in  Boston,  of  course.  Where  else  should  it 
be  published  ?" 

She  looked  at  him  for  the  intention  of  his  question 
so  searchingly  that  he  quite  gave  up  the  attempt  to 
be  gay  about  it.  "  No,"  he  said,  gravely,  "  it's  to  be 
published  in  New  York." 

She  fell  back  in  her  chair.  "  In  New  York?"  She 
leaned  forward  over  the  table  toward  him,  as  if  to  make 
sure  that  she  heard  aright,  and  said,  with  all  the  keen 
reproach  that  he  could  have  expected :  "  In  New  York, 
Basil !  Oh,  how  could  you  have  let  me  go  on  ?" 

He  had  a  sufficiently  rueful  face  in  owning:  "I 
oughtn't  to  have  done  it,  but  I  got  started  wrong.  I 
couldn't  help  putting  the  best  foot  forward  at  first — 
or  as  long  as  the  whole  thing  was  in  the  air.  I  didn't 
know  that  you  would  take  so  much  to  the  general  enter 
prise,  or  else  I  should  have  mentioned  the  New  York 
condition  at  once;  but,  of  course,  that  puts  an  end 
to  it." 

"  Oh,  of  course,"  she  assented,  sadly.  "  We  couldn't 
go  to  New  York." 

"  No,  I  know  that,"  he  said ;  and  with  this  a  per- 

20 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

verse  desire  to  tempt  her  to  the  impossibility  awoke 
in  him,  though  he  was  really  quite  cold  about  the  affair 
himself  now.  "  Fulkerson  thought  we  could  get  a  nice 
Hat  in  New  York  for  about  what  the  interest  and  taxes 
came  to  here,  and  provisions  are  cheaper.  But  I  should 
rather  not  experiment  at  my  time  of  life.  If  I  could 
have  been  caught  younger,  I  might  have  been  inured 
to  New  York,  but  I  don't  believe  I  could  stand  it  now." 

"  How  I  hate  to  have  you  talk  that  way,  Basil ! 
You  are  young  enough  to  try  anything  —  anywhere ; 
but  you  know  I  don't  like  New  York.  I  don't  ap 
prove  of  it.  It's  so  big,  and  so  hideous!  Of  course  I 
shouldn't  mind  that;  but  I've  always  lived  in  Boston, 
and  the  children  were  born  and  have  all  their  friend 
ships  and  associations  here."  She  added,  with  the  help 
lessness  that  discredited  her  good  sense  and  did  her  in 
justice,  "  I  have  just  got  them  both  into  the  Friday 
afternoon  class  at  Papanti's,  and  you  know  how  dif 
ficult  that  is." 

March  could  not  fail  to  take  advantage  of  an  occa 
sion  like  this.  "  Well,  that  alone  ought  to  settle  it. 
Under  the  circumstances,  it  would  be  flying  in  the  face 
of  Providence  to  leave  Boston.  The  mere  fact  of  a 
brilliant  opening  like  that  offered  me  on  The  Microbe, 
and  the  halcyon  future  which  Fulkerson  promises  if 
we'll  come  to  New  York,  is  as  dust  in  the  balance 
against  the  advantages  of  the  Friday  afternoon  class." 

"  Basil,"  she  appealed,  solemnly,  "  have  I  ever  in 
terfered  with  your  career?" 

"  I  never  had  any  for  you  to  interfere  with,  my 
dear." 

"  Basil !  Haven't  I  always  had  faith  in  you  ?  And 
don't  you  suppose  that  if  I  thought  it  would  really  be 
for  your  advancement  I  would  go  to  New  York  or  any 
where  with  you?" 

21 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  No,  my  dear,  I  don't,"  he  teased.  "  If  it  would 
be  for  my  salvation,  yes,  perhaps ;  but  not  short  of  that ; 
and  I  should  have  to  prove  by  a  cloud  of  witnesses  that 
it  would.  I  don't  blame  you.  I  wasn't  born  in  Boston, 
but  I  understand  how  you  feel.  And  really,  my  dear," 
he  added,  without  irony,  "  I  never  seriously  thought  of 
asking  you  to  go  to  New  York.  I  was  dazzled  by  Ful- 
kerson's  offer,  I'll  own  that;  but  his  choice  of  me  as 
editor  sapped  my  confidence  in  him." 

"  I  don't  like  to  hear  you  say  that,  Basil,"  she  en 
treated. 

"  Well,  of  course  there  were  mitigating  circum 
stances.  I  could  see  that  Fulkerson  meant  to  keep 
the  whip-hand  himself,  and  that  was  reassuring.  And, 
besides,  if  the  Reciprocity  Life  should  happen  not  to 
want  my  services  any  longer,  it  wouldn't  be  quite  like 
giving  up  a  certainty ;  though,  as  a  matter  of  business, 
I  let  Fulkerson  get  that  impression ;  I  felt  rather  sneak 
ing  to  do  it.  But  if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  I 
can  look  about  for  something  to  do  in  Boston;  and, 
anyhow,  people  don't  starve  on  two  thousand  a  year, 
though  it's  convenient  to  have  five.  The  fact  is,  I'm 
too  old  to  change  so  radically.  If  you  don't  like  my 
saying  that,  then  you  are,  Isabel,  and  so  are  the  chil 
dren.  I've  no  right  to  take  them  from  the  home  we've 
made,  and  to  change  the  whole  course  of  their  lives, 
unless  I  can  assure  them  of  something,  and  I  can't 
assure  them  of  anything.  Boston  is  big  enough  for  us, 
and  it's  certainly  prettier  than  New  York.  I  always 
feel  a  little  proud  of  hailing  from  Boston ;  my  pleasure 
in  the  place  mounts  the  farther  I  get  away  from  it. 
But  I  do  appreciate  it,  my  dear;  I've  no  more  desire 
to  leave  it  than  you  have.  You  may  be  sure  that  if 
you  don't  want  to  take  the  children  out  of  the  Friday 
afternoon  class,  I  don't  want  to  leave  my  library  here, 

22 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  all  the  ways  I've  got  set  in.  We'll  keep  on.  Very 
likely  the  company  won't  supplant  me,  and  if  it  does, 
and  Watkins  gets  the  place,  he'll  give  me  a  subordinate 
position  of  some  sort.  Cheer  up,  Isabel !  I  have  put 
Satan  and  his  angel,  Fulkerson,  behind  me,  and  it's 
all  right.  Let's  go  in  to  the  children." 

He  came  round  the  table  to  Isabel,  where  she  sat 
in  a  growing  distraction,  and  lifted  her  by  the  waist 
from  her  chair. 

She  sighed  deeply.  "  Shall  we  tell  the  children 
about  it?" 

"  No.     What's  the  use,  now ?" 

"  There  wouldn't  be  any,"  she  assented.  When  they 
entered  the  family  room,  where  the  boy  and  girl  sat 
on  either  side  of  the  lamp  working  out  the  lessons  for 
Monday  which  they  had  left  over  from  the  day  before, 
she  asked,  "  Children,  how  would  you  like  to  live  in 
New  York  ?" 

Bella  made  haste  to  get  in  her  word  first.  "  And 
give  up  the  Friday  afternoon  class?"  she  wailed. 

Tom  growled  from  his  book,  without  lifting  his  eyes : 
"  I  shouldn't  want  to  go  to  Columbia.  They  haven't 
got  any  dormitories,  and  you  have  to  board  round  any 
where.  Are  you  going  to  New  York?"  He  now 
deigned  to  look  up  at  his  father. 

"  No,  Tom.  You  and  Bella  have  decided  me  against 
it.  Your  perspective  shows  the  affair  in  its  true  pro 
portions.  I  had  an  offer  to  go  to  New  York,  but  I've 
refused  it." 


IV 


MARCH'S  irony  fell  harmless  from  the  children's  pre 
occupation  with  their  own  affairs,  but  he  knew  that  bis 
wife  felt  it,  and  this  added  to  the  bitterness  which 
prompted  it.  He  blamed  her  for  letting  her  provincial 
narrowness  prevent  his  accepting  Fulkerson's  offer  quite 
as  much  as  if  he  had  otherwise  entirely  wished  to  ac 
cept  it.  His  world,  like  most  worlds,  had  been  super 
ficially  a  disappointment.  He  was  no  richer  than  at 
the  beginning,  though  in  marrying  he  had  given  Tip 
some  tastes,  some  preferences,  some  aspirations,  in  the 
hope  of  indulging  them  later,  with  larger  means  and 
larger  leisure.  His  wife  had  not  urged  him  to  do  it; 
in  fact,  her  pride,  as  she  said,  \vas  in  his  fitness  for  the 
life  he  had  renounced ;  but  she  had  acquiesced,  and  they 
had  been  very  happy  together.  That  is  to  say,  they 
made  up  their  quarrels  or  ignored  them. 

They  often  accused  each  other  of  being  selfish  and 
indifferent,  but  she  knew  that  he  would  always  sacrifice 
himself  for  her  and  the  children;  and  he,  on  his  part, 
with  many  gibes  and  mockeries,  wholly  trusted  in  her. 
They  had  grown  practically  tolerant  of  each  other's 
disagreeable  traits;  and  the  danger  that  really  threat 
ened  them  was  that  they  should  grow  too  well  satisfied 
with  themselves,  if  not  with  each  other.  They  were 
not  sentimental,  they  were  rather  matter-of-fact  in  their 
motives;  but  they  had  both  a  sort  of  humorous  fond 
ness  for  sentimentality.  They  liked  to  play  with  the 

24 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

romantic,  from  the  safe  vantage-ground  of  their  real 
practicality,  and  to  divine  the  poetry  of  the  common 
place.  Their  peculiar  point  of  view  separated  them 
from  most  other  people,  with  whom  their  means  of  self- 
comparison  were  not  so  good  since  their  marriage  as 
before.  Then  they  had  travelled  and  seen  much  of 
the  world,  and  they  had  formed  tastes  which  they  had 
not  always  been  able  to  indulge,  but  of  which  they  felt 
that  the  possession  reflected  distinction  on  them.  It 
enabled  them  to  look  down  upon  those  who  were  with 
out  such  tastes;  but  they  were  not  ill-natured,  and  so 
they  did  not  look  down  so  much  with  contempt  as  with 
amusement.  In  their  unfashionable  neighborhood  they 
had  the  fame  of  being  not  exclusive  precisely,  but  very 
much  wrapped  up  in  themselves  and  their  children. 

Mrs.  March  was  reputed  to  be  very  cultivated,  and 
Mr.  March  even  more  so,  among  the  simpler  folk 
around  them.  Their  house  had  some  good  pictures, 
which  her  aunt  had  brought  home  from  Europe  in  more 
affluent  clays,  and  it  abounded  in  books  on  which  he 
spent  more  than  he  ought.  They  had  beautified  it  in 
every  way,  and  had  unconsciously  taken  credit  to  them 
selves  for  it.  They  felt,  with  a  glow  almost  of  virtue, 
how  perfectly  it  fitted  their  lives  and  their  children's, 
and  they  believed  that  somehow  it  expressed  their 
characters  —  that  it  was  like  them.  They  went  out 
very  little;  she  remained  shut  up  in  its  refinement, 
working  the  good  of  her  own :  and  he  went  to  his  busi 
ness,  and  hurried  back  to  forget  it,  and  dream  his  dream 
of  intellectual  achievement  in  the  flattering  atmosphere 
of  her  sympathy.  He  could  not  conceal  from  himself 
that  his  divided  life  was  somewhat  like  Charles  Lamb's, 
and  there  were  times  when,  as  he  had  expressed  to  Ful- 
kerson,  he  believed  that  its  division  was  favorable  to 
the  freshness  of  his  interest  in  literature.  It  certainly 

25 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

kept  it  a  high  privilege,  a  sacred  refuge.  Now  and 
then  he  wrote  something,  and  got  it  printed  after  long 
delays,  and  when  they  met  on  the  St.  Lawrence  Fulker- 
son  had  some  of  March's  verses  in  his  pocket  -  book, 
which  he  had  cut  out  of  a  stray  newspaper  and  carried 
about  for  years,  because  they  pleased  his  fancy  so 
much;  they  formed  an  immediate  bond  of  union  be 
tween  the  men  when  their  authorship  was  traced  and 
owned,  and  this  gave  a  pretty  color  of  romance  to  their 
acquaintance.  But,  for  the  most  part,  March  was  satis 
fied  to  read.  He  was  proud  of  reading  critically,  and 
he  kept  in  the  current  of  literary  interests  and  con 
troversies.  It  all  seemed  to  him,  and  to  his  wife  at 
second-hand,  very  meritorious;  he  could  not  help  con 
trasting  his  life  and  its  inner  elegance  with  that  of 
other  men  who  had  no  such  resources.  He  thought  that 
he  was  not  arrogant  about  it,  because  he  did  full  justice 
to  the  good  qualities  of  those  other  people;  he  con 
gratulated  himself  upon  the  democratic  instincts  which 
enabled  him  to  do  this;  and  neither  he  nor  his  wife 
supposed  that  they  were  selfish  persons.  On  the  con 
trary,  they  were  very  sympathetic;  there  was  no  good 
cause  that  they  did  not  wish  well ;  they  had  a  generous 
scorn  of  all  kinds  of  narrow-heartedness ;  if  it  had  ever 
come  into  their  wray  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  others, 
they  thought  they  would  have  done  so,  but  they  never 
asked  why  it  had  not  come  in  their  way.  They  were 
very  gentle  and  kind,  even  when  most  elusive;  and 
they  taught  their  children  to  loathe  all  manner  of  so 
cial  cruelty.  March  was  of  so  watchful  a  conscience 
in  some  respects  that  he  denied  himself  the  pensive 
pleasure  of  lapsing  into  the  melancholy  of  unfulfilled 
aspirations ;  but  he  did  not  see  that,  if  he  had  abandoned 
them,  it  had  been  for  what  he  held  dearer;  generally 
he  felt  as  if  he  had  turned  from  them  with  a  high, 

26 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

altruistic  aim.  The  practical  expression  of  his  life  was 
that  it  was  enough  to  provide  well  for  his  family ;  to 
have  cultivated  tastes,  and  to  gratify  them  to  the  ex 
tent  of  his  means;  to  be  rather  distinguished,  even  in 
the  simplification  of  his  desires.  He  believed,  and  his 
wife  believed,  that  if  the  time  ever  came  when  he 
really  wished  to  make  a  sacrifice  to  the  fulfilment  of  the 
aspirations  so  long  postponed,  she  would  be  ready  to 
join  with  heart  and  hand. 

When  he  went  to  her  room  from  his  library,  where 
she  left  him  the  whole  evening  with  the  children,  he 
found  her  before  the  glass  thoughtfully  removing  the 
first  dismantling  pin  from  her  back  hair. 

"  I  can't  help  feeling,"  she  grieved  into  the  mirror, 
"  that  it's  I  who  keep  you  from  accepting  that  offer. 
I  know  it  is!  I  could  go  West  with  you,  or  into  a 
new  country — anywhere;  but  New  York  terrifies  me. 
I  don't  like  New  York,  I  never  did ;  it  disheartens  and 
distracts  me  ;  I  can't  find  myself  in  it ;  I  shouldn't  know 
how  to  shop.  I  know  I'm  foolish  and  narrow  and 
provincial,"  she  went  on,  "  but  I  could  never  have  any 
inner  quiet  in  New  York ;  I  couldn't  live  in  the  spirit 
there.  I  suppose  people  do.  It  can't  be  that  all  those 
millions — " 

"  Oh,  not  so  bad  as  that !"  March  interposed,  laugh 
ing.  "  There  aren't  quite  two." 

"  I  thought  there  were  four  or  five.  Well,  no  matter. 
You  see  what  I  am,  Basil.  I'm  terribly  limited.  I 
couldn't  make  my  sympathies  go  round  two  million 
people ;  I  should  be  wretched.  I  suppose  I'm  standing 
in  the  way  of  your  highest  interest,  but  I  can't  help 
it.  We  took  each  other  for  better  or  worse,  and  you 
must  try  to  bear  with  me — '  She  broke  off  and  began 
to  cry. 

"  Stop  it !"  shouted  March.     "  I  tell  you  I  never 

27 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

cared  anything  for  Fulkerson's  scheme  or  entertained 
it  seriously,  and  I  shouldn't  if  he'd  proposed  to  carry 
it  out  in  Boston."  This  was  not  quite  true,  but  in  the 
retrospect  it  seemed  sufficiently  so  for  the  purposes4 
of  argument.  "  Don't  say  another  word  about  it.  The 
thing's  over  now,  and  I  don't  want  to  think  of  it  any 
more.  We  couldn't  change  its  nature  if  we  talked  all 
night.  But  I  want  you  to  understand  that  it  isn't  your 
limitations  that  are  in  the  way.  It's  mine.  I  shouldn't 
have  the  courage  to  take  such  a  place;  I  don't  think 
I'm  fit  for  it,  and  that's  the  long  and  short  of  it." 

"  Oh,  you  don't  know  how  it  hurts  me  to  have  you 
say  that,  Basil." 

The  next  morning,  as  they  sat  together  at  break 
fast,  without  the  children,  whom  they  let  lie  late  on 
Sunday,  Mrs.  March  said  to  her  husband,  silent  over 
his  fish-balls  and  baked  beans :  "  We  will  go  to  New 
York.  I've  decided  it." 

"  Well,  it  takes  two  to  decide  that,"  March  retorted. 
"  We  are  not  going  to  New  York." 

"  Yes,  we  are.     I've  thought  it  out.     Now,  listen." 

"  Oh,  I'm  willing  to  listen,"  he  consented,  airily. 

"  You've  always  wanted  to  get  out  of  the  insurance 
business,  and  now  with  thaE  fear  of  being  turned  out 
which  you  have  you  mustn't  neglect  this  offer.  I  sup 
pose  it  has  its  risks,  but  it's  a  risk  keeping  on  as  we 
are;  and  perhaps  you  will  make  a  great  success  of  it. 
I  do  want  you  to  try,  Basil.  If  I  could  once  feel  that 
you  had  fairly  seen  what  you  could  do  in  literature,  I 
should  die  happy." 

"  Not  immediately  after,  I  hope,"  he  suggested,  tak 
ing  the  second  cup  of  coffee  she  had  been  pouring  out 
for  him.  "  And  Boston  ?" 

"  We  needn't  make  a  complete  break.  Wo  can  keep 

28 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

this  place  for  the  present,  anyway;  we  could  let  it  for 
the  winter,  and  come  back  in  the  summer  next  year. 
it  would  be  change  enough  from  New  York." 

"  Fulkerson  and  I  hadn't  got  as  far  as  to  talk  of  a 
vacation." 

"  No  matter.  The  children  and  I  could  come.  And 
if  you  didn't  like  New  York,  or  the  enterprise  failed, 
you  could  get  into  something  in  Boston  again ;  and  we 
have  enough  to  live  on  till  you  did.  Yes,  Basil,  I'm 
going." 

"  I  can  see  by  the  way  your  chin  trembles  that  noth 
ing  could  stop  you.  You  may  go  to  New  York  if  you 
wisli,  Isabel,  but  I  shall  stay  here." 

"  Be  serious,  Basil.     I'm  in  earnest." 

"  Serious  ?  If  I  were  any  more  serious  I  should 
shed  tears.  Come,  my  dear,  I  know  what  you  mean, 
and  if  I  had  my  heart  set  on  this  thing — Fulkerson 
always  calls  it  £  this  thing ' — I  would  cheerfully  accept 
any  sacrifice  you  could  make  to  it.  But  I'd  rather  not 
offer  you  up  on  a  shrine  I  don't  feel  any  particular 
faith  in.  I'm  very  comfortable  where  I  am ;  that  is, 
I  know  just  where  the  pinch  comes,  and  if  it  comes 
harder,  why,  I've  got  used  to  bearing  that  kind  of 
pinch.  I'm  too  old  to  change  pinches." 

"  Now,  that  does  decide  me." 

"  It  decides  me,  too." 

"  I  will  take  all  the  responsibility,  Basil,"  she 
pleaded. 

"  Oh  yes ;  but  you'll  hand  it  back  to  me  as  soon  as 
you've  carried  your  point  with  it.  There's  nothing 
mean  about  you,  Isabel,  where  responsibility  is  con 
cerned.  No;  if  I  do  this  thing — Fulkerson  again!  I 
can't  get  away  from  i  this  thing  ' ;  it's  ominous — I  must- 
do  it  because  I  want  to  do  it,  and  not  because  you  wish 
that  you  wanted  me  to  do  it.  I  understand  your  posi- 

29 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

tion,  Isabel,  and  that  you're  really  acting  from  a  gen 
erous  impulse,  but  there's  nothing  so  precarious  at  our 
time  of  life  as  a  generous  impulse.  When  we  were 
younger  we  could  stand  it;  we  could  give  way  to  it 
and  take  the  consequences.  But  now  we  can't  bear  it. 
We  must  act  from  cold  reason  even  in  the  ardor  of 
self-sacrifice.'7 

"  Oh,  as  if  you  did  that !"  his  wife  retorted. 

"  Is  that  any  cause  why  you  shouldn't  ?"  She  could 
not  say  that  it  was,  and  he  went  on  triumphantly: 
"  No,  I  won't  take  you  away  from  the  only  safe  place 
on  the  planet  and  plunge  you  into  the  most  perilous, 
and  then  have  you  say  in  your  revulsion  of  feeling  that 
you  were  all  against  it  from  the  first,  and  you  gave 
wray  because  you  saw  I  had  my  heart  set  on  it."  He 
supposed  he  was  treating  the  matter  humorously,  but 
in  this  sort  of  banter  between  husband  and  wife  there 
is  always  much  more  than  the  joking.  March  had  seen 
some  pretty  feminine  inconsistencies  and  trepidations 
which  once  charmed  him  in  his  wife  hardening  into 
traits  of  middle-age  which  wrere  very  like  those  of  less 
interesting  older  women.  The  sight  moved  him  with  a 
kind  of  pathos,  but  he  felt  the  result  hindering  and 
vexatious. 

She  now  retorted  that  if  he  did  not  choose  to  take 
her  at  her  word  he  need  not,  but  that  whatever  he  did 
she  should  have  nothing  to  reproach  herself  with ;  and, 
at  least,  he  could  not  say  that  she  had  trapped  liim  into 
anything. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  trapping  ?"  he  demanded. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  call  it,"  she  answered ; 
"but  when  you  get  me  to  commit  myself  to  a  thing 
by  leaving  out  the  most  essential  point,  I  call  it  trap 
ping." 

"  I  wonder  you  stop  at  trapping,  if  you  think  I  got 

30 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

you  to  favor  Fulkerson's  scheme  and  then  sprung  ISTew 
York  on  you.  I  don't  suppose  you  do,  though.  But  I 
guess  we  won't  talk  about  it  any  more." 

He  went  out  for  a  long  walk,  and  she  went  to  her 
room.  They  lunched  silently  together  in  the  presence 
of  their  children,  who  knew  that  they  had  been  quar 
relling,  but  were  easily  indifferent  to  the  fact,  as  chil 
dren  get  to  be  in  such  cases;  nature  defends  their 
youth,  and  the  unhappiness  which  they  behold  does 
not  infect  them.  In  the  evening,  after  the  boy  and 
girl  had  gone  to  bed,  the  father  and  mother  resumed 
their  talk.  He  would  have  liked  to  take  it  up  at  the 
point  from  which  it  wandered  into  hostilities,  for  he 
felt  it  lamentable  that  a  matter  which  so  seriously  con 
cerned  them  should  be  confused  in  the  fumes  of  sense 
less  anger;  and  he  was  willing  to  make  a  tacit  acknowl 
edgment  of  his  own  error  by  recurring  to  the  question, 
but  she  would  not  be  content  with  this,  and  he  had  to 
concede  explicitly  to  her  weakness  that  she  really  meant 
it  when  she  had  asked  him  to  accept  Fulkerson's  offer. 
He  said  he  knew  that ;  and  he  began  soberly  to  talk  over 
their  prospects  in  the  event  of  their  going  to  New  York. 

"  Oh,  I  see  you  are  going !"  she  twitted. 

"  I'm  going  to  stay,"  he  answered,  "  and  let  them 
turn  me  out  of  my  agency  here,"  and  in  this  bitter 
ness  their  talk  ended. 


His  wife  made  no  attempt  to  renew  their  talk  before 
March  went  to  his  business  in  the  morning,  and  they 
parted  in  dry  offence.  Their  experience  was  that  these 
things  always  came  right  of  themselves  at  last,  and  they 
usually  let  them.  He  knew  that  she  had  really  tried 
to  consent  to  a  thing  that  was  repugnant  to  her,  and 
in  his  heart  he  gave  her  more  credit  for  the  effort  than 
he  had  allowed  her  openly.  She  knew  that  she  had 
made  it  with  the  reservation  he  accused  her  of,  and 
that  he  had  a  right  to  feel  sore  at  what  she  could  not 
help.  But  he  left  her  to  brood  over  his  ingratitude, 
and  she  suffered  him  to  go  heavy  and  unfriended  to 
meet  the  chances  of  the  day.  He  said  to  himself  that 
if  she  had  assented  cordially  to  the  conditions  of  Ful- 
kerson's  offer,  he  would  have  had  the  courage  to  take 
all  the  other  risks  himself,  and  would  have  had  the 
satisfaction  of  resigning  his  place.  As  it  was,  he  must 
wait  till  he  was  removed;  and  he  figured  with  bitter 
pleasure  the  pain  she  would  feel  when  he  came  home 
some  day  and  told  her  he  had  been  supplanted,  after 
it  was  too  late  to  close  with  Fulkerson. 

He'  found  a  letter  on  his  desk  from  the  secretary, 
"  Dictated,"  in  typewriting,  which  briefly  informed 
him  that  Mr.  Hubbell,  the  Inspector  of  Agencies, 
would  be  in  Boston  on  Wednesday,  and  would  call 
at  his  office  during  the  forenoon.  The  letter  was  not 

different  in  tone  from  many  that  he  had  formerly  re- 

32 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ceived;  but  the  visit  announced  was  out  of  the  usual 
order,  and  March  believed  he  read  his  fate  in  it.  .Dur 
ing  the  eighteen  years  of  his  connection  with  it — first 
as  a  subordinate  in  the  Boston  office,  and  finally  as  its 
general  agent  there — he  had  seen  a  good  many  changes 
in  the  Reciprocity;  presidents,  vice-presidents,  actu 
aries,  and  general  agents  had  come  and  gone,  but  there 
had  always  seemed  to  be  a  recognition  of  his  efficiency, 
or  at  least  sufficiency,  arid  there  had  never  been  any 
manner  of  trouble,  no  question  of  accounts,  no  appar 
ent  dissatisfaction  with  his  management,  until  latterly, 
when  there  had  begun  to  come  from  headquarters  some 
suggestions  of  enterprise  in  certain  ways,  which  gave 
him  his  first  suspicions  of  his  clerk  Watkins's  willing 
ness  to  succeed  him ;  they  embodied  some  of  Watkins's 
ideas.  The  things  proposed  seemed  to  March  undig 
nified,  and  even  vulgar;  he  had  never  thought  himself 
wanting  in  energy,  though  probably  he  had  left  the 
business  to  take  its  own  course  in  the  old  lines  more 
than  he  realized.  Things  had  always  gone  so  smooth 
ly  that  he  had  sometimes  fancied  a  peculiar  regard 
for  him  in  the  management,  which  he  had  the  weak 
ness  to  attribute  to  an  appreciation  of  what  he  oc 
casionally  did  in  literature,  though  in  saner  moments 
he  felt  how  impossible  this  was.  Beyond  a  reference 
from  Mr.  Hubbell  to  some  piece  of  March's  which  had 
happened  to  meet  his  eye,  no  one  in  the  management 
ever  gave  a  sign  of  consciousness  that  their  service  was 
adorned  by  an  obscure  literary  man ;  and  Mr.  Hubbell 
himself  had  the  effect  of  regarding  the  excursions  of 
March's  pen  as  a  sort  of  joke,  and  of  winking  at  them, 
as  he  might  have  winked  if  once  in  a  way  he  had  found 
him  a  little  the  gayer  for  dining. 

March  wore  through  the  day  gloomily,  but  he  had 
it  on  his  conscience  not  to  show  any  resentment  toward 

33 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Watkins,  whom  lie  suspected  of  wishing  to  supplant 
him,  and  even  of  working  to  do  so.  Through  this  self- 
denial  he  reached  a  better  mind  concerning  his  wife. 
He  determined  not  to  make  her  suffer  needlessly,  if 
the  worst  came  to  the  worst;  she  \vould  suffer  enough, 
at  the  best,  and  till  the  worst  came  he  would  spare  her, 
and  not  say  anything  about  the  letter  he  had  got. 

But  when  they  met,  her  first  glance  divined  that 
something  had  happened,  and  her  first  question  frus 
trated  his  generous  intention.  He  had  to  tell  her  about 
the  letter.  She  would  not  allow  that  it  had  any  sig 
nificance,  but  she  wished  him  to  make  an  end  of  his 
anxieties  and  forestall  whatever  it  might  portend  by 
resigning  his  place  at  once.  She  said  she  was  quite 
ready  to  go  to  N"ew  York;  she  had  been  thinking  it 
all  over,  and  now  she  really  wanted  to  go.  He  an 
swered,  soberly,  that  he  had  thought  it  over,  too;  and 
he  did  not  wish  to  leave  Boston,  where  he  had  lived  so 
long,  or  try  a  new  way  of  life  if  he  could  help  it.  He 
insisted  that  he  was  quite  selfish  in  this;  in  their  con 
cessions  their  quarrel  vanished ;  they  agreed  that  what 
ever  happened  would  be  for  the  best ;  and  the  next  day 
he  went  to  his  office  fortified  for  any  event. 

His  destiny,  if  tragical,  presented  itself  with  an 
aspect  which  he  might  have  found  comic  if  it  had  been 
another's  destiny.  Mr.  Hubbell  brought  March's  re 
moval,  softened  in  the  guise  of  a  promotion.  The  man 
agement  at  "New  York,  it  appeared,  had  acted  upon  a 
suggestion  of  Mr.  Hubbell's,  and  now  authorized  him 
to  offer  March  the  editorship  of  the  monthly  paper 
piiblished  in  the  interest  of  the  company;  his  office 
would  include  the  authorship  of  circulars  and  leaflets 
in  behalf  of  life-insurance,  and  would  give  play  to  the 
literary  talent  which  Mr.  Hubbell  had  brought  to  the 
attention  of  the  management ;  his  salary  would  be  near- 

34 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ly  as  much  as  at  present,  but  the  work  would  not  take 
his  whole  time,  and  in  a  place  like  New  York  he  could 
get  a  great  deal  of  outside  writing,  which  they  would 
not  object  to  his  doing. 

.Air.  Hubbell  seemed  so  sure  of  his  acceptance  of  a 
place  in  every  way  congenial  to  a  man  of  literary  tastes 
that  March  was  afterward  sorry  he  dismissed  the  prop 
osition  with  obvious  irony,  and  had  needlessly  hurt 
HubbelPs  feelings;  but  Mrs.  March  had  no  such  re 
grets.  She  was  only  afraid  that  he  had  not  made  his 
rejection  contemptuous  enough.  "  And  now,"  she  said, 
"  telegraph  Mr.  Fulkerson,  and  we  will  go  at  once." 

"  I  suppose  I  could  still  get  Watkins's  former  place," 
March  suggested. 

"  Never !"  she  retorted.     "  Telegraph  instantly !" 

They  were  only  afraid  now  that  Fulkerson  might 
have  changed  his  mind,  and  they  had  a  wretched  day 
in  which  they  heard  nothing  from  him.  It  ended  with 
his  answering  March's  telegram  in  person.  They  were 
so  glad  of  his  coming,  and  so  touched  by  his  satisfaction 
with  his  bargain,  that  they  laid  all  the  facts  of  the  case 
before  him.  He  entered  fully  into  March's  sense  of  the 
joke  latent  in  Mr.  HubbelPs  proposition,  and  he  tried 
to  make  Mrs.  March  believe  that  he  shared  her  resent 
ment  of  the  indignity  offered  her  husband. 

March  made  a  show  of  willingness  to  release  him  in 
view  of  the  changed  situation,  saying  that  he  held  him 
to  nothing.  Fulkerson  laughed,  and  asked  him  how 
soon  he  thought  he  could  come  on  to  New  York.  He 
refused  to  reopen  the  question  of  March's  fitness  with 
him;  he  said  they  had  gone  into  that  thoroughly,  but 
he  recurred  to  it  with  Mrs.  March,  and  confirmed  her 
belief  in  his  good  sense  on  all  points.  She  had  been 
from  the  first  moment  defiantly  confident  of  her  hus 
band's  ability,  but  till  she  had  talked  the  matter  over 
4  35 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  Fulkerson  she  was  secretly  not  sure  of  it;  or,  at 
least,  she  was  not  sure  that  March  was  not  right  in 
distrusting  himself.  When  she  clearly  understood, 
now,  what  Fulkerson  intended,  she  had  no  longer  a 
doubt.  He  explained  how  the  enterprise  differed  from 
others,  and  how  he  needed  for  its  direction  a  man  who 
combined  general  business  experience  and  business 
ideas  with  a  love  for  the  thing  and  a  natural  aptness 
for  it.  He  did  not  want  a  young  man,  and  yet  he 
wanted  youth — its  freshness,  its  zest — such  as  March 
would  feel  in  a  thing  he  could  put  his  whole  heart  into. 
He  would  not  run  in  ruts,  like  an  old  fellow  who  had 
got  hackneyed ;  he  would  not  have  any  hobbies ;  he 
would  not  have  any  friends  or  any  enemies.  Besides, 
he  would  have  to  meet  people,  and  March  was  a  man 
that  people  took  to;  she  knew  that  herself;  he  had  a 
kind  of  charm.  The  editorial  management  was  going 
to  be  kept  in  the  background,  as  far  as  the  public  was 
concerned;  the  public  was  to  suppose  that  the  thing  ran 
itself.  Fulkerson  did  not  care  for  a  great  literary 
reputation  in  his  editor — he  implied  that  March  had 
a  very  pretty  little  one.  At  the  same  time  the  relations 
between  the  contributors  and  the  management  were  to 
be  much  more  intimate  than  usual.  F^ulkerson  felt  his 
personal  disqualification  for  working  the  thing  socially, 
and  he  counted  upon  Mr.  March  for  that;  that  was  to 
>;iv,  he  counted  iipon  Mrs.  March. 

She  protested  he  must  not  count  upon  her;  but  it 
by  no  means  disabled  Fulker son's  judgment  in  her 
view  that  March  really  seemed  more  than  anything 
else  a  fancy  of  his.  He  had  been  a  fancy  of  hers ;  and 
the  sort  of  affectionate  respect  with  which  Fulkerson 
spoke  of  him  laid  forever  some  doubt  she  had  of  the 
fineness  of  Fulkerson's  manners  and  reconciled  her  to 

the  graphic  slanginess  of  his  speech. 

36 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

The  affair  was  now  irretrievable,  but  she  gave  her 
approval  to  it  as  superbly  as  if  it  were  submitted  in 
its  inception.  Only,  Mr.  Fulkerson  must  not  suppose 
she  should  ever  like  New  York.  She  would  not  de 
ceive  him  on  that  point.  She  never  should  like  it. 
She  did  not  conceal,  either,  that  she  did  not  like  tak 
ing  the  children  out  of  the  Friday  afternoon  class ;  and 
she  did  not  believe  that  Tom  would  ever  be  reconciled 
to  going  to  Columbia.  She  took  courage  from  Fulker- 
son's  suggestion  that  it  was  possible  for  Tom  to  come  to 
Harvard  even  from  New  York;  and  she  heaped  him 
with  questions  concerning  the  domiciliation  of  the  fam 
ily  in  that  city.  He  tried  to  know  something  about  the 
matter,  and  he  succeeded  in  seeming  interested  in  points 
necessarily  indifferent  to  him. 


VI 


IN  the  uprooting  and  transplanting  of  their  home 
that  followed,  Mrs.  March  often  trembled  before  dis 
tant  problems  and  possible  contingencies,  but  she  was 
never  troubled  by  present  difficulties.  She  kept  up  with 
tireless  energy;  and  in  the  moments  of  dejection  and 
misgiving  which  harassed  her  husband  she  remained 
dauntless,  and  put  heart  into  him  when  he  had  lost  it 
altogether. 

She  arranged  to  leave  the  children  in  the  house  with 
the  servants,  while  she  went  on  with  March  to  look  up 
a  dwelling  of  some  sort  in  New  York.  It  made  him 
sick  to  think  of  it ;  and,  when  it  came  to  the  point,  he 
would  rather  have  given  up  the  whole  enterprise.  She 
had  to  nerve  him  to  it,  to  represent  more  than  once 
that  now  they  had  no  choice  but  to  make  this  experi 
ment.  Every  detail  of  parting  was  anguish  to  him. 
He  got  consolation  out  of  the  notion  of  letting  the 
house  furnished  for  the  winter;  that  implied  their  re 
turn  to  it,  but  it  cost  him  pangs  of  the  keenest  misery 
to  advertise  it ;  and,  when  a  tenant  was  actually  found, 
it  was  all  he  could  do  to  give  him  the  lease.  He  tried 
his  wife's  love  and  patience  as  a  man  must  to  whom 
the  future  is  easy  in  the  mass  but  terrible  as  it  trans 
lates  itself  piecemeal  into  the  present.  He  experienced 
remorse  in  the  presence  of  inanimate  things  he  was 
going  to  leave  as  if  they  had  sensibly  reproached  him, 

and  an  anticipative  homesickness  that  seemed  to  stop 

38 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

bis  heart.  Again  and  again  his  wife  had  to  make  him 
reflect  that  his  depression  was  not  prophetic.  She  con 
vinced  him  of  what  he  already  knew,  and  persuaded 
him  against  his  knowledge  that  he  could  be  keeping  an 
eye  out  for  something  to  take  hold  of  in  Boston  if  they 
could  not  stand  ISTew  York.  She  ended  by  telling  him 
that  it  was  too  bad  to  make  her  comfort  him  in  a  trial 
that  was  really  so  much  more  a  trial  to  her.  She  had 
to  support  him  in  a  last  access  of  despair  on  their  way 
to  the  Albany  depot  the  morning  they  started  to  New 
York;  but  when  the  final  details  had  been  dealt  with, 
the  tickets  bought,  the  trunks  checked,  and  the  hand 
bags  hung  up  in  their  car,  and  the  future  had  massed 
itself  again  at  a  safe  distance  and  was  seven  hours  and 
two  hundred  miles  away,  his  spirits  began  to  rise  and 
hers  to  sink.  He  would  have  been  willing  to  celebrate 
the  taste,  the  domestic  refinement,  of  the  ladies'  wait 
ing-room  in  the  depot,  where  they  had  spent  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  before  the  train  started.  He  said  he  did  not 
believe  there  was  another  station  in  the  world  where 
mahogany  rocking-chairs  were  provided;  that  the  dull- 
red  warmth  of  the  walls  was  as  cozy  as  an  evening 
lamp,  and  that  he  always  hoped  to  see  a  fire  kindled 
on  that  vast  hearth  and  under  that  aesthetic  mantel, 
but  he  supposed  now  he  never  should.  He  said  it  was 
all  very  different  from  that  tunnel,  the  old  Albany 
depot,  where  they  had  waited  the  morning  they  went 
to  New  York  when  they  were  starting  on  their  wedding 
journey. 

"  The  morning,  Basil !"  cried  his  wife.  "  We  went 
at  rdghl;  and  we  were  going  to  take  the  boat,  but  it 
stormed  so !"  She  gave  him  a  glance  of  such  reproach 
that  he  could  not  answer  anything,  and  now  she  asked 
him  whether  he  supposed  their  cook  and  second  girl 
would  be  contented  with  one  of  those  dark  holes  where 

39 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

they  put  girls  to  sleep  in.  New  York  flats,  and  what 
she  should  do  if  Margaret,  especially,  left  her.  He 
ventured  to  suggest  that  Margaret  would  probably  like 
the  city;  but,  if  she  left,  there  were  plenty  of  other  girls 
to  be  had  in  New  York.  She  replied  that  there  were 
none  she  could  trust,  and  that  she  knew  Margaret  would 
not  stay.  He  asked  her  why  she  took  her,  then — why 
she  did  not  give  her  up  at  once ;  and  she  answered  that 
it  would  be  inhuman  to  give  her  up  just  in  the  edge 
of  the  winter.  She  had  promised  to  keep  her;  and 
Margaret  was  pleased  with  the  notion  of  going  to  New 
York,  where  she  had  a  cousin. 

"  Then  perhaps  she'll  be  pleased  with  the  notion  of 
staying,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  much  you  know  about  it !"  she  retorted ;  and, 
in  view  of  the  hypothetical  difficulty  and  his  want  of 
sympathy,  she  fell  into  a  gloom,  from  which  she  roused 
herself  at  last  by  declaring  that,  if  there  was  nothing 
else  in  the  flat  they  took,  there  should  be  a  light  kitchen 
and  a  bright,  sunny  bedroom  for  Margaret.  He  ex 
pressed  the  belief  that  they  could  easily  find  such  a 
flat  as  that,  and  she  denounced  his  fatal  optimism, 
which  buoyed  him  up  in  the  absence  of  an  undertak 
ing  and  let  him  drop  into  the  depths  of  despair  in  its 
presence. 

He  owned  this  defect  of  temperament,  but  he  said 
that  it  compensated  the  opposite  in  her  character.  "  I 
suppose  that's  one  of  the  chief  uses  of  marriage;  peo 
ple  supplement  one  another,  and  form  a  pretty  fair 
sort  of  human  being  together.  The  only  drawback  to 
the  theory  is  that  unmarried  people  seem  each  as  com 
plete  and  whole  as  a  married  pair." 

She  refused  to  be  amused ;  she  turned  her  face  to 
the  window  and  put  her  handkerchief  up  under  her 

veil. 

40 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

It  was  not  till  the  dining-car  was  attached  to  their 
train  that  they  were  both  able  to  escape  for  an  hour 
into  the  care-free  mood  of  their  earlier  travels,  when 
they  were  so  easily  taken  out  of  themselves.  The  time 
had  been  when  they  could  have  found  enough  in  the 
conjectural  fortunes  and  characters  of  their  fellow- 
passengers  to  occupy  them.  This  phase  of  their  youth 
had  lasted  long,  and  the  world  was  still  full  of  novelty 
and  interest  for  them ;  but  it  required  all  the  charm  of 
the  dining-car  now  to  lay  the  anxieties  that  beset  them. 
It  was  so  potent  for  the  moment,  however,  that  they 
could  take  an  objective  view  at  their  sitting  cozily  down 
there  together,  as  if  they  had  only  themselves  in  the 
world.  They  wondered  what  the  children  were  doing, 
the  children  who  possessed  them  so  intensely  when  pres 
ent,  and  now,  by  a  fantastic  operation  of  absence,  seem 
ed  almost  non-existent.  They  tried  to  be  homesick  for 
them,  but  failed ;  they  recognized  with  comfortable  self- 
abhorrence  that  this  was  terrible,  but  owned  a  fascina 
tion  in  being  alone;  at  the  same  time,  they  could  not 
imagine  how  people  felt  who  never  had  any  children. 
They  contrasted  the  luxury  of  dining  that  way,  with 
every  advantage  except  a  band  of  music,  and  the  old 
way  of  rushing  out  to  snatch  a  fearful  joy  at  the  lunch- 
counters  of  the  Worcester  and  Springfield  and  New 
Haven  stations.  They  had  not  gone  often  to  New  York 
since  their  wedding  journey,  but  they  had  gone  often 
enough  to  have  noted  the  change  from  the  lunch-counter 
to  the  lunch-basket  brought  in  the  train,  from  which 
you  could  subsist  with  more  ease  and  dignity,  but  seem 
ed  destined  to  a  superabundance  of  pickles,  whatever 
you  ordered. 

They  thought  well  of  themselves  now  that  they  could 
be  both  critical  and  tolerant  of  flavors  not  very  sharply 
distinguished  from  one  another  in  their  dinner,  and 

41 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

they  lingered  over  their  coffee  and  watched  the  au 
tumn  landscape  through  the  windows. 

"  Not  quite  so  loud  a  pattern  of  calico  this  year," 
he  said,  with  patronizing  forbearance  toward  the  paint 
ed  woodlands  whirling  by.  "  Do  you  see  how  the 
foreground  next  the  train  rushes  from  us  and  the 
background  keeps  ahead  of  us,  while  the  middle  dis 
tance  seems  stationary?  I  don't  think  I  ever  noticed 
that  effect  before.  There  ought  to  be  something  lit 
erary  in  it:  retreating  past  and  advancing  future  and 
deceitfully  permanent  present — something  like  that?" 

His  wife  brushed  some  crumbs  from  her  lap  before 
rising.  "  Yes.  You  mustn't  waste  any  of  these  ideas 
now." 

"  Oh  no ;  it  would  be  money  out  of  Fulkerson's 
pocket." 


VII 


THEY  went  to  a  quiet  hotel  far  down-town,  and  took 
a  small  apartment  which  they  thought  they  could  easily 
afford  for  the  day  or  two  they  need  spend  in  looking 
up  a  furnished  flat.  They  were  used  to  staying  at  this 
hotel  when  they  came  on  for  a  little  outing  in  New 
York,  after  some  rigid  winter  in  Boston,  at  the  time 
of  the  spring  exhibitions.  They  were  remembered 
there  from  year  to  year;  the  colored  call-boys,  who 
never  seemed  to  get  any  older,  smiled  upon  them,  and 
the  clerk  called  March  by  name  even  before  he  regis 
tered.  He  asked  if  Mrs.  March  were  with  him,  and 
said  then  he  supposed  they  would  want  their  usual 
quarters;  and  in  a  moment  they  were  domesticated 
in  a  far  interior  that  seemed  to  have  been  waiting  for 
them  in  a  clean,  quiet,  patient  disoccupation  ever  since 
they  left  it  two  years  before.  The  little  parlor,  with 
its  gilt  paper  and  ebonized  furniture,  was  the  lightest 
of  the  rooms,  but  it  was  not  very  light  at  noonday 
without  the  gas,  which  the  bell-boy  now  flared  up  for 
them.  The  uproar  of  the  city  came  to  it  in  a  soothing 
murmur,  and  they  took  possession  of  its  peace  and 
comfort  with  open  celebration.  After  all,  they  agreed, 
there  was  no  place  in  the  world  so  delightful  as  a  hotel 
apartment  like  that;  the  boasted  charms  of  home  were 
nothing  to  it;  and  then  the  magic  of  its  being  always 
there,  ready  for  any  one,  every  one,  just  as  if  it 
were  for  some  one  alone:  it  was  like  the  experience 

43 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of   an   Arabian   Nights   hero   come   true   for    all   the 


race. 

" 


Oh,  why  can't  we  always  stay  here,  just  we  two!" 
Mrs.  March  sighed  to  her  husband,  as  he  came  out 
of  his  room  rubbing  his  face  red  with  the  towel,  whilo 
she  studied  a  new  arrangement  of  her  bonnet  and  hand 
bag  on  the  mantel. 

"  And  ignore  the  past  ?  I'm  willing.  I've  no  doubt 
that  the  children  could  get  on  perfectly  well  without 
us,  and  could  find  some  lot  in  the  scheme  of  Providence 
that  would  really  be  just  as  well  for  them." 

"  Yes  ;  or  could  contrive  somehow  never  to  have  ex 
isted.  I  should  insist  upon  that.  If  they  are,  don't 
you  see  that  we  couldn't  wish  them  not  to  be?" 

"Oh  yes;  I  see  your  point;  it's  simply  incontro 
vertible." 

She  laughed  and  said  :  "  Well,  at  any  rate,  if  we 
can't  find  a  flat  to  suit  us  we  can  all  crowd  into  these 
three  rooms  somehow,  for  the  winter,  and  then  browse 
about  for  meals.  By  the  week  we  could  get  them  much 
cheaper;  and  we  could  save  on  the  eating,  as  they  do 
in  Europe.  Or  on  something  else." 

"  Something  else,  probably,"  said  March.  "  But  we 
won't  take  this  apartment  till  the  ideal  furnished  flat 
winks  out  altogether.  We  shall  not  have  any  trouble. 
We  can  easily  find  some  one  who  is  going  South  for 
the  winter  and  will  be  glad  to  give  up  their  flat  '  to 
the  right  party  '  at  a  nominal  rent.  That's  my  notion. 
That's  what  the  Evanses  did  one  winter  when  they 
came  on  here  in  February.  All  but  the  nominality  of 
the  rent," 

"  Yes,  and  we  could  pay  a  very  good  rent  and  still 
save  something  on  letting  our  house.  You  can  settle 
yourselves  in  a  hundred  different  ways  in  New  York, 

that  is  one  merit  of  the  place.     But  if  everything  else 

44 


A    11AZAKD    O.F    NEW    FORTUNES 

fails,  we  can  corne  back  to  this.  I  want  you  to  take 
the  refusal  of  it,  Basil.  And  we'll  commence  looking 
this  very  evening  as  soon  as  we've  had  dinner.  I  cut 
a  lot  of  things  out  of  the  Herald  as  we  came  on.  See 
here!" 

She  took  a  long  strip  of  paper  out  of  her  hand-hag 
with  minute  advertisements  pinned  transversely  upon 
it,  and  forming  the  effect  of  some  glittering  nondescript 
vertebrate. 

"  Looks  something  like  the  sea-serpent,"  said  March, 
drying  his  hands  on  the  towel,  while  he  glanced  up 
and  down  the  list.  "  But  we  sha'n't  have  any  trouble. 
I've  no  doubt  there  are  half  a  dozen  things  there  that 
will  do.  You  haven't  gone  up-town  ?  Because  we  must 
be  near  the  Every  Other  Week  office." 

"  No ;  but  I  wish  Mr.  Fulkerson  hadn't  called  it 
that !  It  always  makes  one  think  of  '  jam  yesterday 
and  jam  to-morrow,  but  never  jam  to-day,'  in  Through 
the  Look  ing-Glass.  They're  all  in  this  region." 

They  were  still  at  their  table,  beside  a  low  window, 
where  some  sort  of  never-blooming  shrub  symmetrically 
balanced  itself  in  a  large  pot,  with  a  leaf  to  the  right 
and  a  leaf  to  the  left  and  a  spear  up  the  middle,  when 
Fulkerson  came  stepping  square-footedly  over  the  thick 
dining-room  carpet.  He  wagged  in  the  air  a  gay  hand 
of  salutation  at  sight  of  them,  and  of  repression  when 
they  offered  to  rise  to  meet  him ;  then,  with  an  appar 
ent  simultaneity  of  action  he  gave  a  hand  to  each,  pull 
ed  up  a  chair  from  the  next  table,  put  his  hat  and  stick 
on  the  floor  beside  it,  and  seated  himself. 

"  Well,  you've  burned  your  ships  behind  you,  sure 
enough,"  he  said,  beaming  his  satisfaction  upon  them 
from  eyes  and  teeth. 

"  The  ships  are  burned,"  said  March,  "  though  I'm 
not  sure  we  alone  did  it.  But  here  we  are,  looking  for 

45 


A    HAZARD    OE    NEW    FOETUNES 

shelter,  and  a  little  anxious  about  the  disposition  of  the 


natives." 


"  Oh,  they're  an  awful  peaceable  lot,"  said  Fulker- 
son.  "  IVe  been  round  among  the  caciques  a  little,  and 
I  think  I've  got  two  or  three  places  that  will  just  suit 
you,  Mrs.  March.  How  did  you  leave  the  children?" 

"  Oh,  how  kind  of  you !  Very  well,  and  very  proud 
to  be  left  in  charge  of  the  smoking  wrecks." 

Fulkerson  naturally  paid  no  attention  to  what  she 
said,  being  but  secondarily  interested  in  the  children  at 
the  best.  "  Here  are  some  things  right  in  this  neigh 
borhood,  within  gunshot  of  the  office,  and  if  you  want 
you  can  go  and  look  at  them  to-night;  the  agents  gave 
me  houses  where  the  people  would  be  in." 

"  We  will  go  and  look  at  them  instantly,"  said  Mrs. 
March.  "  Or,  as  soon  as  you've  had  coffee  with  us." 

"  Never  do,"  Fulkerson  replied.  He  gathered  up 
his  hat  and  stick.  "  Just  rushed  in  to  say  Hello,  and 
got  to  run  right  away  again.  I  tell  you,  March,  things 
are  humming.  I'm  after  those  fellows  with  a  sharp 
stick  all  the  while  to  keep  them  from  loafing  on  my 
house,  and  at  the  same  time  I'm  just  bubbling  over 
with  ideas  about  The  Lone  Hand — wish  we  could  call 
it  that ! — that  I  want  to  talk  up  with  you." 

"  Well,  come  to  breakfast,"  said  Mrs.  March,  cord 
ially. 

"  No ;  the  ideas  will  keep  till  you've  secured  your 
lodge  in  this  vast  wilderness.  Good-bye." 

"  You're  as  nice  as  you  can  be,  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  she 
said,  "  to  keep  us  in  mind  when  you  have  so  much  to 
occupy  you." 

"  I  wouldn't  have  am/thing  to  occupy  me  if  I  hadn't 
kept  you  in  mind,  Mrs.  March,"  said  Fulkerson,  going 
off  upon  as  good  a  speech  as  he  could  apparently  hope 
to  make. 

46 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Why,  Basil,"  said  Mrs.  March,  when  he  was  gone, 
"  he's  charming !  But  now  we  mustn't  lose  an  instant. 
Let's  see  where  the  places  are."  She  ran  over  the  half- 
dozen  agents'  permits.  "  Capital — first-rate — the  very 
thing — every  one.  Well,  I  consider  ourselves  settled! 
We  can  go  back  to  the  children  to-morrow  if  we  like, 
though  I  rather  think  I  should  like  to  stay  over  an 
other  day  and  get  a  little  rested  for  the  final  pulling- 
Tip  that's  got  to  come.  But  this  simplifies  everything 
enormously,  and  Mr.  Fulkerson  is  as  thoughtful  and  as 
sweet  as  he  can  be.  I  know  you  will  get  on  well  with 
him.  He  has  such  a  good  heart.  And  his  attitude  tow 
ard  you,  Basil,  is  beautiful  always — so  respectful;  or 
not  that  so  much  as  appreciative.  Yes,  apprecia 
tive  —  that's  the  word ;  I  must  always  keep  that  in 
mind." 

"  It's  quite  important  to  do  so,"  said  March. 

"  Yes,"  she  assented,  seriously,  "  and  we  must  not 
forget  just  what  kind  of  flat  we  are  going  to  look  for. 
The  sine  qua  nons  are  an  elevator  and  steam  heat,  not 
above  the  third  floor,  to  begin  with.  Then  we  must 
each  have  a  room,  and  you  must  have  your  study  and 
I  must  have  my  parlor;  and  the  two  girls  must  each 
have  a  room.  With  the  kitchen  and  dining-room,  how 
many  does  that  make  ?" 

"  Ten." 

"  I  thought  eight.  Well,  no  matter.  You  can  work 
in  the  parlor,  and  run  into  your  bedroom  when  any 
body  comes ;  and  I  can  sit  in  mine,  and  the  girls  must 
put  up  with  one,  if  it's  large  and  sunny,  though  I've 
always  given  them  two  at  home.  And  the  kitchen  must 
be  sunny,  so  they  can  sit  in  it.  'And  the  rooms  must 
all  have  outside  light.  'And  the  rent  must  not  be  over 
eight  hundred  for  the  winter.  We  only  get  a  thousand 
for  our  whole  house,  and  we  must  save  something  out 

47 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  that,  so  as  to  cover  the  expenses  of  moving.    Now,  do 
you  think  you  can  remember  all  that?" 

"  Not  the  half  of  it,"  said  March.  "  But  you  can ; 
or  if  you  forget  a  third  of  it,  I  can  come  in  with  my 
partial  half  and  more  than  make  it  up." 

She  had  brought  her  bonnet  and  sacque  down-stairs 
with  her,  and  was  transferring  them  from  the  hat-rack 
to  her  person  while  she  talked.  The  friendly  door-boy 
let  them  into  the  street,  and  the  clear  October  evening 
air  brightened  her  so  that  as  she  tucked  her  hand  under 
her  husband's  arm  and  began  to  pull  him  along  she 
said,  "  If  we  find  something  right  away — and  we're 
just  as  likely  to  get  the  right  flat  soon  as  late;  it's  all 
a  lottery — we'll  go  to  the  theatre  somewhere." 

She  had  a  moment's  panic   about  having  left  the 

agents'  permits  on  the  table,   and  after  remembering 

that  she  had  put  them  into  her  little  shopping  -  bag, 

where  she  kept  her  money  (each  note  crushed  into  a 

round  wad),  and  had  left  it  on  the  hat-rack,  where 

it  would  certainly  be  stolen,  she  found  it  on  her  wrist. 

She  did  not  think  that  very  funny;  but  after  a  first 

impulse  to  inculpate  her  husband,  she  let  him  laugh, 

while  they  stopped  under   a   lamp   and   she  held  the 

permits  half  a  yard  away  to  read  the  numbers  on  them. 

"  Where  are  your  glasses,  Isabel  ?" 

"  On  the  mantel  in  our  room,  of  course." 

"  Then  you  ought  to  have  brought  a  pair  of  tongs." 

"  I  wouldn't  get  off  second-hand  jokes,  Basil,"  she 

said ;  and  "  Why,  here  I"  she  cried,  whirling  round  to 

the  door  before  which  they  had  halted,  "  this  is  the 

very  number.    Well,  I  do  believe  it's  a  sign !" 

One  of  those  colored  men  who  soften  the  trade  of 
janitor  in  many  of  the  smaller  apartment-houses  in 
"NTew  York  by  the  sweetness  of  their  race  let  the 
Marches  in,  or,  ratter,  welcomed  them  to  the  pos- 

48 


A    HAZAKD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

session  of  the  premises  by  the  bow  with  which  he  ac 
knowledged  their  permit.  It  was  a  large,  old  mansion 
cut  up  into  five  or  six  dwellings,  but  it  had  kept  some 
traits  of  its  former  dignity,  which  pleased  people  of 
their  sympathetic  tastes.  The  dark-mahogany  trim,  of 
sufficiently  ugly  design,  gave  a  rich  gloom  to  the  hall 
way,  which  was  wide  and  paved  with  marble ;  the  car 
peted  stairs  curved  aloft  through  a  generous  space, 

"  There  is  no  elevator  ?"  Mrs.  March  asked  of  the 
janitor. 

lie  ansAvered,  "No,  ma'am;  only  two  nights  up," 
so  winningly  that  she  said, 

"  Oh !"  in  courteous  apology,  and  whispered  to  her 
husband,  as  she  followed  lightly  up,  "  We'll  take  it, 
Basil,  if  it's  like  the  rest." 

"  If  it's  like  him,  you  mean." 

"  I  don't  wonder  they  wanted  to  own  them,"  she 
hurriedly  philosophized.  "  If  I  had  such  a  creature, 
nothing  but  death  should  part  us,  and  I  should  no  more 
think  of  giving  him  his  freedom!" 

"No;  we  couldn't  afford  it,"  returned  her  husband. 

The  apartment  which  the  janitor  unlocked  for  them, 
and  lit  up  from  those  chandeliers  and  brackets  of  gilt- 
brass  in  the  form  of  vine  bunches,  leaves,  and  tendrils 
in  which  the  early  gas-fitter  realized  most  of  his  con 
ceptions  of  beauty,  had  rather  more  of  the  ugliness 
than  the  dignity  of  the  hall.  But  the  rooms  were  large, 
and  they  grouped  themselves  in  a  reminiscence  of  the 
time  when  they  were  part  of  a  dwelling  that  had  its 
charm,  its  pathos,  its  impressiveness.  Where  they  were 
cut  up  into  smaller  spaces,  it  had  been  done  with  the 
frankness  with  which  a  proud  old  family  of  fallen  fort 
unes  practises  its  economies.  The  rough  pine  floors 
showed  a  black  border  of  tack-heads  where  carpets  had 
been  lifted  and  put  down  for  generations;  the  white 

49 


A    HAZAKD    0V    NEW    FOKTUNES 

paint  was  yellow  with  age ;  the  apartment  had  light  at 
the  front  and  at  the  back,  and  two  or  three  rooms  had 
glimpses  of  the  day  through  small  windows  let  into 
their  corners ;  another  one  seemed  lifting  an  appealing 
eye  to  heaven  through  a  glass  circle  in  its  ceiling;  the 
rest  must  darkle  in  perpetual  twilight.  Yet  something 
pleased  in  it  all,  and  Mrs.  March  had  gone  far  to  adapt 
the  different  rooms  to  the  members  of  her  family,  when 
she  suddenly  thought  (and  for  her  to  think  was  to  say), 
"Why,  but  there's  no  steam  heat!" 

"  No,  ma'am,"  the  janitor  admitted ;  "  but  dere's 
grates  in  most  o'  de  rooms,  and  dere's  furnace  heat 
in  de  halls."' 

"  That's  true,"  she  admitted,  and,  having  placed  her 
family  in  the  apartments,  it  was  hard  to  get  them  out 
again.  "  Could  we  manage  ?"  she  referred  to  her  hus 
band. 

"  Why,  /  shouldn't  care  for  the  steam  heat  if — 
What  is  the  rent?"  he  broke  off  to  ask  the  janitor. 

"  Nine  hundred,  sir." 

March  concluded  to  his  wife,  "  If  it  were  furnished." 

"  Why,  of  course !  What  could  I  have  been  think 
ing  of?  We're  looking  for  a  furnished  flat,"  she  ex 
plained  to  the  janitor,  "  and  this  was  so  pleasant  and 
homelike  that  I  never  thought  whether  it  was  furnished 
or  not." 

She  smiled  upon  the  janitor,  and  he  entered  into  the 
joke  and  chuckled  so  amiably  at  her  flattering  over 
sight  on  the  way  down  -  stairs  that  she  said,  as  she 
pinched  her  husband's  arm,  "  Now,  if  you  don't  give 
him  a  quarter  I'll  never  speak  to  you  again,  Basil !" 

"  I  would  have  given  half  a  dollar  willingly  to  get 
you  beyond  his  glamour,"  said  March,  when  they  were 
safely  on  the  pavement  outside.  "  If  it  hadn't  been 
for  iny  strength  of  character,  you'd  have  taken  an  un- 

50 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

furnished  flat  without  heat  and  with  no  elevator,  at 
nine  hundred  a  year,  when  you  had  just  sworn  me  to 
steam  heat,  an  elevator,  furniture,  and  eight  hundred." 

"  Yes !  How  could  I  have  lost  my  head  so  com 
pletely?"  she  said,  with  a  lenient  amusement  in  her 
aberration  which  she  was  not  always  able  to  feel  in 
her  husband's. 

"  The  next  time  a  colored  janitor  opens  the  door  to 
us,  I'll  tell  him  the  apartment  doesn't  suit  at  the  thresh 
old.  It's  the  only  way  to  manage  you,  Isabel." 

"  It's  true.  I  am  in  love  with  the  whole  race.  I 
never  saw  one  of  them  that  didn't  have  perfectly  an 
gelic  manners.  I  think  we  shall  all  be  black  in  heaven 
— that  is,  black-souled." 

"  That  isn't  the  usual  theory,"  said  March. 

"  Well,  perhaps  not,"  she  assented.  "  Where  are  we 
going  now  ?  Oh  yes,  to  the  Xenophon  !" 

She  pulled  him  gayly  along  again,  and  after  they 
had  walked  a  block  down  and  half  a  block  over  they 
stood  before  the  apartment-house  of  that  name,  which 
was  cut  on  the  gas-lamps  on  either  side  of  the  heavily 
spiked,  aesthetic-hinged  black  door.  The  titter  of  an 
electric-bell  brought  a  large,  fat  Buttons,  with  a  stage 
effect  of  being  dressed  to  look  small,  who  said  he  would 
call  the  janitor,  and  they  waited  in  the  dimly  splendid, 
copper-colored  interior,  admiring  the  whorls  and  waves 
into  which  the  wall-paint  was  combed,  till  the  janitor 
came  in  his  gold-banded  cap,  like  a  Continental  portier. 
When  they  said  they  would  like  to  see  Mrs.  Grosvenor 
Green's  apartment,  he  owned  his  inability  to  cope  with 
the  affair,  and  said  he  must  send  for  the  superintend 
ent  ;  he  was  either  in  the  Herodotus  or  the  Thucydides, 
and  would  be  there  in  a  minute.  The  Buttons  brought 
him  —  a  Yankee  of  browbeating  presence  in  plain 
clothes — almost  before  they  had  time  to  exchange  a 
5  51 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

frightened  whisper  in  recognition  of  the  fact  that  there 
could  be  no  doubt  of  the  steam  heat  and  elevator  in 
this  case.  Half  stifled  in  the  one,  they  mounted  in. 
the  other  eight  stories,  while  they  tried  to  keep  their 
self-respect  under  the  gaze  of  the  superintendent,  which 
they  felt  was  classing  and  assessing  them  with  unfriend 
ly  accuracy.  They  could  not,  and  they  faltered  abashed 
at  the  threshold  of  Mrs.  Grosvenor  Green's  apartment, 
while  the  superintendent  lit  the  gas  in  the  gangway  that 
he  called  a  private  hall,  and  in  the  drawing-room  and 
the  succession  of  chambers  stretching  rearward  to  the 
kitchen.  Everything  had  been  done  by  the  architect 
to  save  space,  and  everything  to  waste  it  by  Mrs. 
Grosvenor  Green.  She  had  conformed  to  a  law  for 
the  necessity  of  turning  round  in  each  room,  and  had 
folding-beds  in  the  chambers;  but  there  her  subordina 
tion  had  ended,  and  wherever  you  might  have  turned 
round  she  had  put  a  gimcrack  so  that  you  would  knock 
it  over  if  you  did  turn.  The  place  was  rather  pretty 
and  even  imposing  at  first  glance,  and  it  took  several 
joint  ballots  for  March  and  his  wife  to  make  sure  that 
with  the  kitchen  there  were  only  six  rooms.  At  every 
door  hung  a  portiere  from  large  rings  on  a  brass  rod ; 
every  shelf  and  dressing-case  and  mantel  was  littered 
with  gimcracks,  and  the  corners  of  the  tiny  rooms  were 
curtained  off,  and  behind  these  portieres  swarmed  more 
gimcracks.  The  front  of  the  upright  piano  had  what 
March  called  a  short-skirted  portiere  on  it,  and  the  top 
was  covered  with  vases,  with  dragon  candlesticks  and 
with  Jap  fans,  which  also  expanded  themselves  bat- 
wise  on  the  walls  between  the  etchings  and  the  water- 
colors.  The  floors  were  covered  with  filling,  and  then 
rugs  and  then  skins ;  the  easy  -  chairs  all  had  tidies, 
Armenian  and  Turkish  and  Persian;  the  lounges  and 
sofas  had  embroidered  cushions  hidden  under  tidies. 

52 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

The  radiator  was  concealed  by  a  Jap  screen,  and  over 
the  top  of  this  some  Arab  scarfs  were  flung.  There  was 
a  superabundance  of  clocks.  China  pugs  guarded  the 
hearth ;  a  brass  sunflower  smiled  from  the  top  of  either 
andiron,  and  a  brass  peacock  spread  its  tail  before  them 
inside  a  high  filigree  fender ;  on  one  side  was  a  coal- 
hod  in  repousse  brass,  and  on  the  other  a  wrought-irori 
wood-basket.  Some  red  Japanese  bird-kites  were  stuck 
about  in  the  necks  of  spelter  vases,  a  crimson  Jap 
umbrella  hung  opened  beneath  the  chandelier,  and  each 
globe  had  a  shade  of  yellow  silk. 

March,  when  he  had  recovered  his  self-command  a 
little  in  the  presence  of  the  agglomeration,  comforted 
himself  by  calling  the  bric-a-brac  Jamescracks,  as  if 
this  was  their  full  name. 

The  disrespect  he  was  able  to  show  the  whole  apart 
ment  by  means  of  this  joke  strengthened  him  to  say 
boldly  to  the  superintendent  that  it  was  altogether  too 
small ;  then  he  asked  carelessly  what  the  rent  was. 

"  Two  hundred  and  fifty." 

The  Marches  gave  a  start,  and  looked  at  each  other. 

"  Don't  you  think  we  could  make  it  do  ?"  she  asked 
him,  and  he  could  see  that  she  had  mentally  saved  five 
hundred  dollars  as  the  difference  between  the  rent  of 
their  house  and  that  of  this  flat.  "  It  has  some  very 
pretty  features,  and  we  could  manage  to  squeeze  in, 
couldn't  we ?" 

"  You  won't  find  another  furnished  flat  like  it  for 
no  two-fifty  a  month  in  the  whole  city,"  the  superin 
tendent  put  in. 

They  exchanged  glances  again,  and  March  said,  care 
lessly,  "  It's  too  small." 

"  There's  a  vacant  flat  in  the  Herodotus  for  eighteen 
hundred  a  year,  and  one  in  the  Thucydides  for  fifteen," 
the  superintendent  suggested,  clicking  his  keys  together 

53 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

as  they  sank  down  in  the  elevator ;  "  seven  rooms  and 
bath." 

"  Thank  you/'  said  March ;  "  we're  looking  for  a 
furnished  flat." 

They  felt  that  the  superintendent  parted  from  them 
with  repressed  sarcasm. 

"  Oh,  Basil,  do  you  think  we  really  made  him  think 
it  was  the  smallness  and  not  the  dearness  ?" 

"  No,  but  we  saved  our  self-respect  in  the  attempt ; 
and  that's  a  great  deal." 

"  Of  course,  I  wouldn't  have  taken  it,  anyway,  with 
only  six  rooms,  and  so  high  up.  But  what  prices! 
Now,  we  must  be  very  circumspect  about  the  next 
place." 

It  was  a  janitress,  large,  fat,  with  her  arms  wound 
up  in  her  apron,  who  received  them  there.  Mrs.  March 
gave  her  a  succinct  but  perfect  statement  of  their  needs. 
She  failed  to  grasp  the  nature  of  them,  or  feigned  to 
do  so.  She  shook  her  head,  and  said  that  her  son 
would  show  them  the  flat.  There  was  a  radiator  visible 
in  the  narrow  hall,  and  Isabel  tacitly  compromised  on 
steam  heat  without  an  elevator,  as  the  flat  was  only 
one  flight  up.  When  the  son  appeared  from  below  with 
a  small  kerosene  hand-lamp,  it  appeared  that  the  flat 
was  unfurnished,  but  there  was  no  stopping  him  till  he 
had  shown  it  in  all  its  impossibility.  When  they  got 
safely  away  from  it  and  into  the  street  March  said: 
"  Well,  have  you  had  enough  for  to  -  night,  Isabel  ? 
Shall  we  go  to  the  theatre  now?" 

"  Not  on  any  account.  I  want  to  see  the  whole 
list  of  flats  that  Mr.  Fulkerson  thought  would  be  the 
very  thing  for  us."  She  laughed,  but  with  a  certain 
bitterness. 

"  You'll  be  calling  him  my  Mr.  Fulkerson  next, 
Isabel." 

54 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"Oh  no!" 

The  fourth  address  was  a  furnished  flat  without 
a  kitchen,  in  a  house  with  a  general  restaurant.  The 
fifth  was  a  furnished  house.  At  the  sixth  a  pathetic 
widow  and  her  pretty  daughter  wanted  to  take  a  family 
to  board,  and  would  give  them  a  private  table  at  a 
rate  which  the  Marches  would  have  thought  low  in 
Boston. 

Mrs.  March  came  away  tingling  with  compassion  for 
their  evident  anxiety,  and  this  pity  naturally  soured 
into  a  sense  of  injury.  "  Well,  I  must  say  I  have 
completely  lost  confidence  in  Mr.  Fulker son's  judg 
ment.  Anything  more  utterly  different  from  what  1 
told  him  we  wanted  I  couldn't  imagine.  If  he  doesn't 
manage  any  better  about  his  business  than  he  has  done 
about  this,  it  will  be  a  perfect  failure." 

"  Well,  well,  let's  hope  he'll  be  more  circumspect 
about  that,"  her  husband  returned,  with  ironical  pro 
pitiation.  "  But  I  don't  think  it's  Fulkerson's  fault 
altogether.  Perhaps  it's  the  house-agents'.  They're 
very  illusory  generation.  There  seems  to  be  somethin 
in  the  human  habitation  that  corrupts  the  natures  of 
those  who  deal  in  it,  to  buy  or  sell  it,  to  hire  or  let/ 
it.  You  go  to  an  agent  and  tell  him  what  kind  ofa 
house  you  want.  He  has  no  such  house,  and  he  sends 
you  to  look  at  something  altogether  different,  upon  the 
well-ascertained  principle  that  if  you  can't  get  what 
you  want  you  will  take  what  you  can  get.  You  don't 
suppose  the  '  party '  that  took  our  house  in  Boston  was 
looking  for  any  such  house  ?  He  was  looking  for  a 
totally  different  kind  of  house  in  another  part  of  the 
town." 

"  I  don't  believe  that !"  his  wife  broke  in. 

"  Well,  no  matter.  But  see  what  a  scandalous  rent 
you  asked  for  it." 

55 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"We  didn't  get  much  more  than  half;  and,  besides, 
the  agent  told  me  to  ask  fourteen  hundred." 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  blaming  you,  Isabel.  I'm  only  an 
alyzing  the  house-agent  and  exonerating  Fulkerson." 

"  Well,  I  don't  believe  he  told  them  just  what  we 
wanted ;  and,  at  any  rate,  I'm  done  with  agents.  To 
morrow  I'm  going  entirely  by  advertisements." 


VIII 

MRS.  MARCH  took  the  vertebrate  with  her  to  the 
\?rienna  Coffee  -  House,  where  they  went  to  breakfast 
next  morning.  She  made  March  buy  her  the  Herald 
and  the  World,  and  she  added  to  its  spiny  convolutions 
from  them.  She  read  the  new  advertisements  aloud 
with  ardor  and  with  faith  to  believe  that  the  apart 
ments  described  in  them  were  every  one  truthfully 
represented,  and  that  any  one  of  them  was  richly  re 
sponsive  to  their  needs.  "Elegant,  light,  large,  single 
and  outside  flats "  Avere  offered  with  "  all  improve 
ments — bath,  ice-box,  etc." — for  twenty-five  to  thirty 
dollars  a  month.  The  cheapness  was  amazing.  The 
Wagram,  the  Esmeralda,  the  Jacinth,  advertised  them 
for  forty  dollars  and  sixty  dollars,  "  with  steam  heat 
and  elevator,"  rent  free  till  ^November.  Others,  at 
tractive  from  their  air  of  conscientious  scruple,  an 
nounced  "first-class  flats;  good  order;  reasonable 
rents."  The  Helena  asked  the  reader  if  she  had  seen 
the  "  cabinet  finish,  hard-wood  floors,  and  frescoed  ceil 
ings  "  of  its  fifty  -  dollar  flats ;  the  Asteroid  affirmed 
that  such  apartments,  with  "  six  light  rooms  and  bath, 
porcelain  wash-tubs,  electric  bells,  and  hall-boy,"  as  it- 
offered  for  seventy-five  dollars  were  unapproached  by 
competition.  There  was  a  sameness  in  the  jargon 
which  tended  to  confusion.  Mrs.  March  got  several 
flats  on  her  list  which  promised  neither  steam  heat 
nor  elevators;  she  forgot  herself  so  far  as  to  include 

57 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

two  or  three  as  remote  from  the  down-town  region  of 
her  choice  as  Harlem.  But  after  she  had  rejected  these 
the  nondescript  vertebrate  was  still  voluminous  enough 
to  sustain  her  buoyant  hopes. 

The  waiter,  who  remembered  them  from  year  to 
year,  had  put  them  at  a  window  giving  a  pretty  good 
section  of  Broadway,  and  before  they  set  out  on  their 
search  they  had  a  moment  of  reminiscence.  They  re 
called  the  Broadway  of  five,  of  ten,  of  twenty  years 
ago,  swelling  and  roaring  with  a  tide  of  gayly  painted 
omnibuses  and  of  picturesque  traffic  that  the  horse- 
cars  have  now  banished  from  it.  The  grind  of  their 
wheels  and  the  clash  of  their  harsh  bells  imperfectly 
fill  the  silence  that  the  omnibuses  have  left,  and  the 
eye  misses  the  tumultuous  perspective  of  former  times. 

They  went  out  and  stood  for  a  moment  before  Grace 
Church,  and  looked  down  the  stately  thoroughfare,  and 
found  it  no  longer  impressive,  no  longer  characteristic. 
It  is  still  Broadway  in  name,  but  now  it  is  like  any 
other  street.  You  do  not  now  take  your  life  in  your 
hand  when  you  attempt  to  cross  it;  the  Broadway 
policeman  who  supported  the  elbow  of  timorous  beauty 
in  the  hollow  of  his  cotton-gloved  palm  and  guided  its 
little  fearful  boots  over  the  crossing,  while  he  arrested 
the  billowy  omnibuses  on  either  side  with  an  imperious 
glance,  is  gone,  and  all  that  certain  processional,  bar 
baric  gayety  of  the  place  is  gone. 

"  Palmyra,  Baalbec,  Timour  of  the  Desert,"  said 
March,  voicing  their  common  feeling  of  the  change. 

They  turned  and  went  into  the  beautiful  church,  and 
found  themselves  in  time  for  the  matin  service.  Rapt 
far  from  New  York,  if  not  from  earth,  in  the  dim 
richness  of  the  painted  light,  the  hallowed  music  took 
them  with  solemn  ecstasy;  the  aerial,  aspiring  Gothic 
forms  seemed  to  lift  them  heavenward.  They  came 

58 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

out,  reluctant,  into  the  dazzle  and  bustle  of  the  street, 
with  a  feeling  that  they  were  too  good  for  it,  which 
they  confessed  to  each  other  with  whimsical  con 
sciousness. 

"  But  no  matter  how  consecrated  we  feel  now,"  he 
said,  "  we  mustn't  forget  that  we  went  into  the  church 
for  precisely  the  same  reason  that  we  went  to  the 
Vienna  Cafe  for  breakfast  —  to  gratify  an  a3sthetic 
sense,  to  renew  the  faded  pleasure  of  travel  for  a  mo 
ment,  to  get  back  into  the  Europe  of  our  youth.  It 
was  a  purely  Pagan  impulse,  Isabel,  and  we'd  better 
own  it." 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  returned.  "  I  think  we  re 
duce  ourselves  to  the  bare  bones  too  much.  I  wish 
we  didn't  always  recognize  the  facts  as  we  do.  Some 
times  I  should  like  to  blink  them.  I  should  like  to 
think  I  was  devouter  than  I  am,  and  younger  and 
prettier." 

"  Better  not ;  you  couldn't  keep  it  up.  Honesty  is 
the  best  policy  even  in  such  things." 

"  No ;  I  don't  like  it,  Basil.  I  should  rather  wait 
till  the  last  day  for  some  of  my  motives  to  come  to  the 
top.  I  know  they're  always  mixed,  but  do  let  me  give 
them  the  benefit  of  a  doubt  sometimes." 

"  Well,  well,  have  it  your  own  way,  my  dear.  But 
I  prefer  not  to  lay  up  so  many  disagreeable  surprises 
for  myself  at  that  time." 

She  would  not  consent.  "  I  know  I  am  a  good  deal 
younger  than  I  was.  I  feel  quite  in  the  mood  of  that 
morning  when  we  walked  down  Broadway  on  our  wed 
ding  journey.  Don't  you  ?" 

"  Oh  yes.  But  I  know  I'm  not  younger ;  I'm  only 
prettier." 

She  laughed  for  pleasure  in  his  joke,  and  also  for 
unconscious  joy  in  the  gay  New  York  weather,  in  which 

59 


A    ITAZAKT)    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

there  was  no  arriere  pensee  of  the  east  wind.  They 
had  crossed  Broadway,  and  were  walking  over  to  Wash 
ington  Square,  in  the  region  of  which  they  now  hoped 
to  place  themselves.  The  primo  tenore  statue  of  Gari- 
haldi  had  already  taken  possession  of  the  place  in  the 
name  of  Latin  progress,  and  they  met  Italian  faces, 
French  faces,  Spanish  faces,  as  they  strolled  over  the 
asphalt  walks,  under  the  thinning  shadows  of  the  au 
tumn-stricken  sycamores.  They  met  the  familiar  pict 
uresque  raggedness  of  Southern  Europe  with.  the.  old 
kindly  illusion  that  somehow  it  existed  for  their  ap 
preciation,  and  that  it  found  adequate  compensation  for 
poverty  in  this.  March  thought  he  sufficiently  express 
ed  his  tacit  sympathy  in  sitting  down  on  one  of  the 
iron  benches  with  his  wife  and  letting  a  little  Nea 
politan  put  a  superfluous  shine  on  his  boots,  while  their 
desultory  comment  wandered  with  equal  esteem  to  the 
old-fashioned  American  respectability  which  keeps  the 
north  side  of  the  square  in  vast  mansions  of  red  brick, 
and  the  international  shabbiness  which  has  invaded  the 
southern  border,  and  broken  it  up  into  lodging-houses, 
shops,  beer-gardens,  and  studios. 

They  noticed  the  sign  of  an  apartment  to  let  on  the 
nor tli  side,  and  as  soon  as  the  little  bootblack  could  be 
bought  off  they  went  over  to  look  at  it.  The  janitor 
met  them  at  the  door  and  examined  them.  Then  he 
said,  as  if  still  in  doubt,  u  It  has  ten  rooms,  and  the 
rent  is  twenty-eight  hundred  dollars." 

"  It  wouldn't  do,  then,"  March  replied,  and  left  him 
to  divide  the  responsibility  between  the  paucity  of  the 
rooms  and  the  enormity  of  the  rent  as  he  best  might. 
But  their  self  -  love  had  received  a  wound,  and  they 
questioned  each  other  what  it  was  in  their  appearance 
made  him  doubt  their  ability  to  pay  so  much. 

"  Of  course,  we  don't  look  like  New-Yorkers,"  sighed 

60 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Mrs.  March,  "  and  we've  walked  through  the  Square. 
That  might  be  as  if  we  had  walked  along  the  Park 
Street  mall  in  the  Common  before  we  came  out  on 
Beacon.  Do  you  suppose  he  could  have  seen  you  get 
ting  your  boots  blacked  in  that  way  V 

"  It's  useless  to  ask/7  said  March.  "  But  I  never  can 
recover  from  this  blow." 

"  Oh,  pshaw !  You  know  you  hate  such  things  as 
badly  as  I  do.  It  was  very  impertinent  of  him." 

"  Let  us  go  back  and  ecraser  I'infame  by  paying 
him  a  year's  rent  in  advance  and  taking  immediate 
possession.  Nothing  else  can  soothe  my  wounded  feel 
ings.  You  were  not  having  your  boots  blacked:  why 
shouldn't  he  have  supposed  you  were  a  New-Yorker, 
and  I  a  country  cousin  ?" 

"  They  always  know.  Don't  you  remember  Mrs. 
Williams's  going  to  a  Fifth  Avenue  milliner  in  a 
Worth  dress,  and  the  woman's  asking  her  instantly 
what  hotel  she  should  send  her  hat  to?" 

"  Yes ;  these  things  drive  one  to  despair.  I  don't 
wonder  the  bodies  of  so  many  genteel  strangers  are 
found  in  the  waters  around  New  York.  Shall  we  try 
the  south  side,  my  dear?  or  had  we  better  go  back  to 
our  rooms  and  rest  awhile  ?" 

Mrs.  March  had  out  the  vertebrate,  and  was  con 
sulting  one  of  its  glittering  ribs  and  glancing  up  from 
it  at  a  house  before  which  they  stood.  "  Yes,  it's  the 
number;  but  do  they  call  this  being  ready  October 
first?"  The  little  area  in  front  of  the  basement  was 
heaped  with  a  mixture  of  mortar,  bricks,  laths,  and 
shavings  from  the  interior ;  the  brownstone  steps  to  the 
front  door  were  similarly  bestrewn ;  the  doorway  show 
ed  the  half-open,  rough  pine  carpenter's  sketch  of  an 
unfinished  house;  the  sashless  windows  of  every  story 
showed  the  activity  of  workmen  within;  the  clatter  of 

61 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

hammers  and  the  hiss  of  saws  came  out  to  them  from 
every  opening. 

"  They  may  call  it  October  first,"  said  March,  "  be 
cause  it's  too  late  to  contradict  them.  But  they'd  better 
not  call  it  December  first  in  my  presence ;  I'll  let  them 
say  January  first,  at  a  pinch." 

"  We  will  go  in  and  look  at  it,  anyway,"  said  his 
wife;  and  he  admired  how,  when  she  was  once  within, 
she  began  provisionally  to  settle  the  family  in  each  of 
the  several  floors  with  the  female  instinct  for  domi- 
ciliation  which  never  failed  her.  She  had  the  help 
of  the  landlord,  who  was  present  to  urge  forward  the 
workmen  apparently;  he  lent  a  hopeful  fancy  to  the 
solution  of  all  her  questions.  To  get  her  from  under 
his  influence  March  had  to  represent  that  the  place 
was  damp  from  undried  plastering,  and  that  if  she 
stayed  she  would  probably  be  down  with  that  New 
York  pneumonia  which  visiting  Bostonians  are  always 
dying  of.  Once  safely  on  the  pavement  outside,  she 
realized  that  the  apartment  was  not  only  unfinished, 
but  unfurnished,  and  had  neither  steam  heat  nor  ele 
vator.  "  But  I  thought  we  had  better  look  at  every 
thing,"  she  explained. 

"  Yes,  but  not  take  everything.  If  I  hadn't  pulled 
you  away  from  there  by  main  force  you'd  have  not 
only  died  of  New  York  pneumonia  on  the  spot,  but 
you'd  have  had  us  all  settled  there  before  we  knew 
what  we  were  about." 

"  Well,  that's  what  I  can't  help,  Basil.  It's  the  only 
way  I  can  realize  whether  it  will  do  for  us.  I  have  to 
dramatize  the  whole  thing." 

She  got  a  deal  of  pleasure  as  well  as  excitement  out 
of  this,  and  he  had  to  own  that  the  process  of  setting 
up  housekeeping  in  so  many  different  places  was  not 
only  entertaining,  but  tended,  through  association  with 

62 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

their  first  beginnings  in  housekeeping,  to  restore  the 
image  of  their  early  married  days  and  to  make  them 
young  again. 

It  went  on  all  day,  and  continued  far  into  the  night, 
until  it  was  too  late  to  go  to  the  theatre,  too  late  to 
do  anything  but  tumble  into  bed  and  simultaneously 
fall  asleep.  They  groaned  over  their  reiterated  dis 
appointments,  but  they  could  not  deny  that  the  interest 
was  unfailing,  and  that  they  got  a  great  deal  of  fun 
out  of  it  all.  Nothing  could  abate  Mrs.  March's  faith 
in  her  advertisements.  One  of  them  sent  her  to  a  flat 
of  ten  rooms  which  promised  to  be  the  solution  of  all 
their  difficulties;  it  proved  to  be  over  a  livery-stable,  a 
liquor  store,  and  a  milliner's  shop,  none  of  the  first 
fashion.  Another  led  them  far  into  old  Greenwich 
Village  to  an  apartment-house,  which  she  refused  to 
enter  behind  a  small  girl  with  a  loaf  of  bread  under 
one  arm  and  a  quart  can  of  milk  under  the  other. 

In  their  search  they  were  obliged,  as  March  com 
plained,  to  the  acquisition  of  useless  information  in 
a  degree  unequalled  in  their  experience.  They  came 
to  excel  in  the  sad  knowledge  of  the  line  at  which  re 
spectability  distinguishes  itself  from  shabbiness.  Flat 
tering  advertisements  took  them  to  numbers  of  huge 
apartment-houses  chiefly  distinguishable  from  tenement- 
houses  by  the  absence  of  fire-escapes  on  their  facades, 
till  Mrs.  March  refused  to  stop  at  any  door  where  there 
were  more  than  six  bell-ratchets  and  speaking-tubes  on 
either  hand.  Before  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  she 
decided  against  ratchets  altogether,  and  confined  her 
self  to  knobs,  neatly  set  in  the  door-trim.  Her  husband 
was  still  sunk  in  the  superstition  that  you  can  live  any 
where  you  like  in  New  York,  and  he  would  have  paused 
at  some  places  where  her  quicker  eye  caught  the  fatal 
sign  of  "  Modes  "  in  the  ground-floor  windows.  She 

63 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

found  that  there  was  an  east  and  west  line  beyond 
Avhich  they  could  not  go  if  they  wished  to  keep  their 
self-respect,  and  that  within  the  region  to  which  they 
had  restricted  themselves  there  was  a  choice  of  streets. 
At  first  all  the  New  York  streets  looked  to  them  ill- 
paved,  dirty,  and  repulsive;  the  general  infamy  im 
parted  itself  in  their  casual  impression  to  streets  in  no 
wise  guilty.  But  they  began  to  notice  that  some  streets 
were  quiet  and  clean,  and,  though  never  so  quiet  and 
clean  as  Boston  streets,  that  they  wore  an  air  of  en 
couraging  reform,  and  suggested  a  future  of  greater 
and  greater  domesticity.  Whole  blocks  of  these  down 
town,  cross-streets  seemed  to  have  been  redeemed  from 
decay,  and  even  in  the  midst  of  squalor  a  dwelling  here 
and  there  had  been  seized,  painted  a  dull  red  as  to  its 
brick-work,  and  a  glossy  black  as  to  its  wood-work,  and 
with  a  bright  brass  bell-pull  and  door-knob  and  a  large 
brass  plate  for  its  key-hole  escutcheon,  had  been  en 
dowed  with  an  effect  of  purity  and  pride  which  removed 
its  shabby  neighborhood  far  from  it. 

Some  of  these  houses  were  quite  small,  and  im 
aginably  within  their  means ;  but,  as  March  said,  some 
body  seemed  always  to  be  living  there  himself,  and  the 
fact  that  none  of  them  was  to  rent  kept  Mrs.  March 
true  to  her  ideal  of  a  flat,  Nothing  prevented  its 
realization  so  much  as  its  difference  from  the  New 
York  ideal  of  a  flat,  which  was  inflexibly  seven  rooms 
and  a  bath.  One  or  two  rooms  might  be  at  the  front, 
the  rest  crooked  and  cornered  backward  through  in 
creasing  and  then  decreasing  darkness  till  they  reached 
a  light  bedroom  or  kitchen  at  the  rear.  It  might  be 
the  one  or  the  other,  but  it  was  always  the  seventh 
room  with  the  bath;  or  if,  as  sometimes  happened,  it 
was  the  eighth,  it  was  so  after  having  counted  the  bath 
as  one;  in  this  case  the  janitor  said  you  always  counted 

CA 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

the  bath  as  one.     If  the  flats  were  advertised  as  having 

o 

u  all  light  rooms,"  he  explained  that  any  room  with  a 
window  giving  into  the  open  air  of  a  court  or  shaft 
was  counted  a  light  room. 

The  Marches  tried  to  make  out  why  it  was  that  these 
flats  were  so  much  more  repulsive  than  the  apartments 
which  every  one  lived  in  abroad;  but  they  could:  only 
do  so  upon  the  supposition  that  in  their  European  days 
they  were  too  young,  too  happy,  too  full  of  the  future, 
to  notice  whether  rooms  were  inside  or  outside,  light  or 
dark,  big  or  little,  high  or  low.  "  Now  we're  im 
prisoned  in  the  present,"  he  said,  "  and  we  have  to 
make  the  worst  of  it." 

In  their  despair  he  had  an  inspiration,  which  she 
declared  worthy  of  him :  it  was  to  take  two  small  flats, 
of  four  or  five  rooms  and  a  bath,  and  live  in  both. 
They  tried  this  in  a  great  many  places,  but  they  never 
could  get  two  flats  of  the  kind  on  the  same  floor  where 
there  was  steam  heat  and  an  elevator.  At  one  place 
they  almost  did  it.  They  had  resigned  themselves  to 
the  humility  of  the  neighborhood,  to  the  prevalence  of 
modistes  and  livery  -  stablemen  (they  seem  to  consort 
much  in  New  York),  to  the  garbage  in  the  gutters  and 
the  litter  of  paper  in  the  streets,  to  the  faltering  slats 
in  the  surrounding  window-shutters  and  the  crumbled 
brownstone  steps  and  sills,  when  it  turned  out  that  one 
of  the  apartments  had  been  taken  between  two  visits 
they  made.  Then  the  only  combination  left  open  to 
them  was  of  a  ground-floor  flat  to  the  right  and  a  third- 
floor  flat  to  the  left. 

Still  they  kept  this  inspiration  in  reserve  for  use 
at  the  first  opportunity.  In  the  mean  time  there  were 
several  flats  which  they  thought  they  could  almost  make 
do:  notably  one  where  they  could  get  an  extra  ser 
vant's  room  in  the  basement  four  flights  down,  and 

65 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

another  where  they  could  get  it  in  the  roof  five  flights 
up.  At  the  first  the  janitor  was  respectful  and  en 
thusiastic;  at  the  second  he  had  an  effect  of  ironical 
pessimism.  When  they  trembled  on  the  verge  of  tak 
ing  his  apartment,  he  pointed  out  a  spot  in  the  kal- 
somining  of  the  parlor  ceiling,  and  gratuitously  said, 
Now  such  a  thing  as  that  he  should  not  agree  to  put 
in  shape  unless  they  took  the  apartment  for  a  term  of 
years.  The  apartment  was  unfurnished,  and  they  re 
curred  to  the  fact  that  they  wanted  a  furnished  apart 
ment,  and  made  their  escape.  This  saved  them  in 
several  other  extremities;  but  short  of  extremity  they 
could  not  keep  their  different  requirements  in  mind, 
and  were  always  about  to  decide  without  regard  to  some 
one  of  them. 

They  went  to  several  places  twice  without  intend 
ing:  once  to  that  old-fashioned  house  with  the  pleasant 
colored  janitor,  and  wandered  all  over  the  apartment 
again  with  a  haunting  sense  of  familiarity,  and  then 
recognized  the  janitor  and  laughed;  and  to  that  house 
with  the  pathetic  widow  and  the  pretty  daughter  who 
wished  to  take  them  to  board.  They  stayed  to  excuse 
their  blunder,  and  easily  came  by  the  fact  that  the 
mother  had  taken  the  house  that  the  girl  might  have 
a  home  while  she  was  in  New  York  studying  art,  and 
they  hoped  to  pay  their  way  by  taking  boarders.  Her 
daughter  was  at  her  class  now,  the  mother  concluded; 
and  they  encouraged  her  to  believe  that  it  could  only 
be  a  few  days  till  the  rest  of  her  scheme  was  realized. 

"  I  dare  say  we  could  be  perfectly  comfortable 
there,"  March  suggested  when  they  had  got  away. 
"  Now  if  we  were  truly  humane  we  would  modify 
our  desires  to  meet  their  needs  and  end  this  sicken 
ing  search,  wouldn't  we  ?" 

"  Yes,  but  we're  not  truly  humane,"  his  wife  an- 

66 


A    HAZAKD    OF   'NEW    FORTUNES 

swered,  "  or  at  least  not  in  that  sense.  You  know  you 
hate  boarding ;  and  if  we  went  there  I  should  have  them 
on  my  sympathies  the  whole  time." 

"  I  see.     And  then  you  would  take  it  out  of  me." 

"  Then  I  should  take  it  out  of  you.  And  if  you  are 
going  to  be  so  weak,  Basil,  and  let  every  little  thing 
work  upon  you  in  that  way,  you'd  better  not  come  to 
New  York.  You'll  see  enough  misery  here." 

"  Well,  don't  take  that  superior  tone  with  me,  as  if 
I  were  a  child  that  had  its  mind  set  on  an  undesirable 
toy,  Isabel." 

"  Ah,  don't  you  suppose  it's  because  you  are  such 
a  child  in  some  respects  that  I  like  you,  dear?"  she 
demanded,  without  relenting. 

"  But  I  don't  find  so  much  misery  in  New  York.  I 
don't  suppose  there's  any  more  suffering  here  to  the 
population  than  there  is  in  the  country.  And  they're 
so  gay  about  it  all.  I  think  the  outward  aspect  of  the 
place  and  the  hilarity  of  the  sky  and  air  must  get  into 
the  people's  blood.  The  weather  is  simply  unapproach 
able;  and  I  don't  care  if  it  is  the  ugliest  place  in  the 
world,  as  you  say.  I  suppose  it  is.  It  shrieks  and 
yells  with  ugliness  here  and  there,  but  it  never  loses 
its  spirits.  That  widow  is  from  the  country.  When 
she's  been  a  year  in  New  York  she'll  be  as  gay — as 
gay  as  an  L  road."  He  celebrated  a  satisfaction  they 
both  had  in  the  L  roads.  ^  They  kill  the  streets  and 
avenues,  but  at  least  they  partially  hide  them,  and  that 
is  some  comfort;  and  they  do  triumph  over  their  pros 
trate  forms  with  a  savage  exultation  that  is  intoxi 
cating.  Those  bends  in  the  L  that  you  get  in  the 
corner  of  Washington  Square,  or  just  below  the  Cooper 
Institute — they're  the  gayest  things  in  the  world.  Per 
fectly  atrocious,  of  course,  but  incomparably  pictu 
resque!  And  the  whole  city  is  so,"  said  March,  "or 
6  67 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

else  the  L  would  never  have  got  built  here.  \  New  York 
may  be  splendidly  gay  or  squalidly  gay;  but,  prince 
or  pauper,  it's  gay  always." 

"  Yes,  gay  is  the  word,"  she  admitted,  with  a  sigh. 
"  But  frantic.  I  can't  get  used  to  it.  They  forget 
death,  Basil ;  they  forget  death  in  New  York." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  that  I've  ever  found  much  ad 
vantage  in  remembering  it." 

"  Don't  say  such  a  thing,  dearest." 

He  could  see  that  she  had  got  to  the  end  of  her 
nervous  strength  for  the  present,  and  he  proposed  that 
they  should  take  the  Elevated  road  as  far  as  it  would 
carry  them  into  the  country,  and  shake  off  their  night 
mare  of  flat-hunting  for  an  hour  or  two;  but  her  con 
science  would  not  let  her.  She  convicted  him  of  levity 
equal  to  that  of  the  New-Yorkers  in  proposing  such  a 
thing ;  and  they  dragged  through  the  day.  She  was  too 
tired  to  care  for  dinner,  and  in  the  night  she  had  a 
dream  from  which  she  woke  herself  with  a  cry  that 
roused  him,  too.  It  was  something  about  the  children 
.  at  first,  whom  they  had  talked  of  wistfully  before  fall- 

£^  ing  asleep,  and  then  it  was  of  a  hideous  thing  with 

//  I  two  sclliare  eJes  and  a  series  of  sections  growing  darker 

and  then  lighter,  till  the  tail  of  the  monstrous  articulate 
was  quite  luminous  again.  She  shuddered  at  the  vague 
description  she  was  able  to  give ;  but  he  asked,  "  Did 
it  offer  to  bite  you  ?" 

"  No.  That  was  the  most  frightful  thing  about  it ; 
it  had  no  mouth." 

March  laughed.  "  Why,  my  dear,  it  was  nothing 
but  a  harmless  New  York  flat — seven  rooms  and  a 
bath." 

"  I  really  believe  it  was,"  she  consented,  recognizing 
an  architectural  resemblance,  and  she  fell  asleep  again, 
and  woke  renewed  for  the  work  before  them. 

08 


IX 


THEIK  house-hunting  no  longer  had  novelty,  but  it 
still  had  interest;  and  they  varied  their  day  by  taking 
a  coupe,  by  renouncing  advertisements,  and  by  revert 
ing  to  agents.  Some  of  these  induced  them  to  consider 
the  idea  of  furnished  houses;  and  Mrs.  March  learned 
tolerance  for  Fulkerson  by  accepting  permits  to  visit 
flats  and  houses  which  had  none  of  the  qualifications 
she  desired  in  either,  and  were  as  far  beyond  her  means 
as  they  were  out  of  the  region  to  which  she  had  geo 
graphically  restricted  herself.  They  looked  at  three- 
thousand  and  four  -  thousand  dollar  apartments,  and 
rejected  them  for  one  reason  or  another  which  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  rent ;  the  higher  the  rent  was,  the 
more  critical  they  \vere  of  the  slippery  inlaid  floors  and 
the  arrangement  of  the  richly  decorated  rooms.  They 
never  knew  whether  they  had  deceived  the  janitor 
or  not;  as  they  came  in  a  coupe,  they  hoped  they 
had. 

They  drove  accidentally  through  one  street  that  seem 
ed  gayer  in  the  perspective  than  an  L  road.  The  fire- 
escapes,  with  their  light  iron  balconies  and  ladders  of 
iron,  decorated  the  lofty  house  fronts ;  the  roadway  and 
sidewalks  and  door-steps  swarmed  with  children ;  wom 
en's  heads  seemed  to  show  at  every  window.  In  the 
basements,  over  which  flights  of  high  stone  steps  led 
to  the  tenements,  were  green-grocers'  shops  abounding 
in  cabbages,  and  provision  stores  running  chiefly  to 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

bacon  and  sausages,  and  cobblers'  and  tinners7  shops, 
and  the  like,  in  proportion  to  the  small  needs  of  a 
poor  neighborhood.  Ash  barrels  lined  the  sidewalks, 
and  garbage  heaps  filled  the  gutters ;  teams  of  all  trades 
stood  idly  about;  a  peddler  of  cheap  fruit  urged  his 
cart  through  the  street,  and  mixed  his  cry  with  the 
joyous  screams  and  shouts  of  the  children  and  the 
scolding  and  gossiping  voices  of  the  women ;  the  burly 
blue  bulk  of  a  policeman  defined  itself  at  the  corner; 
a  drunkard  zigzagged  down  the  sidewalk  toward  him. 
It  was  not  the  abode  of  the  extremest  poverty,  but  of 
a  poverty  as  hopeless  as  any  in  the  world,  transmitting 
itself  from  generation  to  generation,  and  establishing 
conditions  of  permanency  to  which  human  life  adjusts 
itself  as  it  does  to  those  of  some  incurable  disease,  like 
leprosy. 

The  time  had  been  when  the  Marches  would  have 
taken  a  purely  aesthetic  view  of  the  facts  as  they 
glimpsed  them  in  this  street  of  tenement-houses;  when 
they  would  have  contented  themselves  with  saying  that 
it  was  as  picturesque  as  a  street  in  Naples  or  Florence, 
and  with  wondering  why  nobody  came  to  paint  it ;  they 
would  have  thought  they  were  sufficiently  serious  about 
it  in  blaming  the  artists  for  their  failure  to  appreciate 
it,  and  going  abroad  for  the  picturesque  when  they 
had  it  here  under  their  noses.  It  was  to  the  nose  that 
the  street  made  one  of  its  strongest  appeals,  and  Mrs. 
March  pulled  up  her  window  of  the  coupe.  "  Why 
does  he  take  us  through  such  a  disgusting  street  ?"  she 
demanded,  with  an  exasperation  of  which  her  husband 
divined  the  origin. 

"  This  driver  may  be  a  philanthropist  in  disguise," 
he  answered,  with  dreamy  irony,  "  and  may  want  us 
to  think  about  the  people  who  are  not  merely  carried 
through  this  street  in  a  coupe,  but  have  to  spend  their 

70 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW     FORTUNES 

whole  lives  in  it,  winter  and  summer,  with  no  hopes 
of  driving  out  of  it,  except  in  a  hearse.  I  must  say 
they  don't  seem  to  mind  it.  I  haven't  seen  a  jollier 
crowd  anywhere  in  New  York.  They  seem  to  have  for 
gotten  death  a  little  more  completely  than  any  of  their 
fellow-citizens,  Isabel.  And  I  wonder  what  they  think 
of  us,  making  this  gorgeous  progress  through  their 
midst.  I  suppose  they  think  we're  rich,  and  hate  us 
—if  they  hate  rich  people;  they  don't  look  as  if  they 
hated  anybody.  Should  we  be  as  patient  as  they 
are  with  their  discomfort?  I  don't  believe  there's 
steam  heat  or  an  elevator  in  the  whole  block.  Seven 
rooms  and  a  bath  would  be  more  than  the  largest 
and  genteelest  family  would  know  what  to  do  with. 
They  wouldn't  know  what  to  do  with  the  bath,  any 
way." 

His  monologue  seemed  to  interest  his  wife  apart 
from  the  satirical  point  it  had  for  themselves.  "  You 
ought  to  get  Mr.  Fulkerson  to  let  you  work  some  of 
these  ~New  York  sights  up  for  Every  Other  Week, 
Basil;  you  could  do  them  very  nicely." 

"  Yes ;  I've  thought  of  that.  But  don't  let's  leave 
the  personal  ground.  Doesn't  it  make  you  feel  rather 
small  and  otherwise  unworthy  when  you  see  the  kind 
of  street  these  fellow-beings  of  yours  live  in,  and  then 
think  how  particular  you  are  about  locality  and  the 
number  of  bell-pulls  ?  I  don't  see  even  ratchets  and 
speaking-tubes  at  these  doors."  He  craned  his  neck  out 
of  the  window  for  a  better  look,  and  the  children  of 
discomfort  cheered  him,  out  of  sheer  good  feeling 
and  high  spirits.  "  I  didn't  know  I  was  so  popular. 
Perhaps  it's  a  recognition  of  my  humane  senti 
ments." 

"  Oh,  it's  very  easy  to  have  humane  sentiments,  and 
to  satirize  ourselves  for  wanting  eight  rooms  and  a  bath 

71 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

in  a  good  neighborhood,  when  wo  see  how  these  wretch 
ed  creatures  live,"  said  his  wife.  "  But  if  we  shared 
all  we  have  with  them,  and  then  settled  down  among 
them,  what  good  would  it  do  ?" 

"  Not  the  least  in  the  world.  It  might  help  us  for 
the  moment,  but  it  wouldn't  keep  the  wolf  from  their 
doors  for  a  week;  and  then  they  would  go  on  just  as 
before,  only  they  wouldn't  be  on  such  good  terms  with 
the  wolf.  The  only  way  for  them  is  to  keep  up  an 
unbroken  intimacy  with  the  wolf;  then  they  can  man 
age  him  somehow.  I  don't  know  how,  and  I'm  afraid 
I  don't  want  to.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  have  this 
fellow  drive  us  round  among  the  halls  of  pride  some 
where  for  a  little  while?  Fifth  Avenue  or  Madison, 
up-town  ?" 

"  No ;  we've  no  time  to  waste.  I've  got  a  place  near 
Third  Avenue,  on  a  nice  cross  street,  and  I  want  him 
to  take  us  there."  It  proved  that  she  had  several  ad 
dresses  near  together,  and  it  seemed  best  to  dismiss 
their  coupe  arid  do  the  rest  of  their  afternoon's  work 
on  foot.  It  came  to  nothing;  she  was  not  humbled  in 
the  least  by  what  she  had  seen  in  the  tenement-house 
street;  she  yielded  no  point  in  her  ideal  of  a  flat,  and 
the  flats  persistently  refused  to  lend  themselves  to  it. 
She  lost  all  patience  with  them. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  say  the  flats  are  in  the  right  of  it," 
said  her  husband,  when  she  denounced  their  stupid 
inadequacy  to  the  purposes  of  a  Christian  home.  "  But 
I'm  not  so  sure  that  we  are,  either.  I've  been  thinking 
about  that  home  business  ever  since  my  sensibilities 
were  dragged — in  a  coupe — through  that  tenement-house 
street.  Of  course,  no  child  born  and  brought  up  in  such 
a  place  as  that  could  have  any  conception  of  home. 
But  that's  because  those  poor  people  can't  give  char 
acter  to  their  habitations.  They  have  to  take  what  they 

72 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

can  get.  But  people  like  us — that  is,  of  our  means — 
do  give  character  to  the  average  flat.  It's  made  to  meet 
their  tastes,  or  their  supposed  tastes;  and  so  it's  made 
for  social  show,  not  for  family  life  at  all.  Think  of 
a  baby  in  a  flat !  It's  a  contradiction  in  terms ;  the 
flat  is  the  negation  of  motherhood.  The  flat  means 
society  life;  that  is,  the  pretence  of  social  life.  It's 
made  to  give  artificial  people  a  society  basis  on  a  little 
money — too  much  money,  of  course,  for  what  they  get. 
So  the  cost  of  the  building  is  put  into  marble  halls  and 
idiotic  decoration  of  all  kinds.  I  don't  object  to  the 
conveniences,  but  none  of  these  flats  has  a  living-room. 
They  have  drawing-rooms  to  foster  social  pretence,  and 
they  have  dining-rooms  and  bedrooms;  but  they  have 
no  room  where  the  family  can  all  come  together  and 
feel  the  sweetness  of  being  a  family.  The  bedrooms 
are  black-holes  mostly,  with  a  sinful  waste  of  space  in 
each.  If  it  were  not  for  the  marble  halls,  and  the  deco 
rations,  and  the  foolishly  expensive  finish,  the  houses 
could  be  built  round  a  court,  and  the  flats  could  be 
shaped  something  like  a  Pompeiian  house,  with  small 
sleeping-closets  —  only  lit  from  the  outside  —  and  the 
rest  of  the  floor  thrown  into  two  or  three  large  cheerful 
halls,  where  all  the  family  life  could  go  on,  and  society 
could  be  transacted  unpretentiously.  Why,  those  tene 
ments  are  better  and  humaner  than  those  flats !  There 
the  whole  family  lives  in  the  kitchen,  and  has  its  con 
sciousness  of  being;  but  the  flat  abolishes  the  family 
consciousness.  It's  confinement  without  coziness;  it's 
cluttered  without  being  snug.  YOU  couldn't  keep  a  self- 
respecting  cat  in  a  flat ;  you  couldn't  go  down  cellar  to 
get  cider.  ~No:  the  Anglo-Saxon  home,  as  we  know  it 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  house,  is  simply  impossible  in  the 
Franco-American  flat,  not  because  it's  humble,  but  be 
cause  it's  false." 

73 


A    IIAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"Well,  then,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  let's  look  at 
houses." 

He  had  been  denouncing  the  flat  in  the  abstract,  and 
he  had  not  expected  this  concrete  result.  But  he  said, 
"  We  will  look  at  houses,  then." 


mystifies  a  man  more  than  a  woman's 
aberrations  from  some  point  at  which  he  supposes 
her  fixed  as  a  star.  In  these  unfurnished  houses, 
without  steam  or  elevator,  March  followed  his  wife 
about  with  patient  wonder.  She  rather  liked  the  worst 
of  them  best:  but  she  made  him  go  down  into  the  cel 
lars  and  look  at  the  furnaces;  she  exacted  from  him  a 
rigid  inquest  of  the  plumbing.  She  followed  him  into 
one  of  the  cellars  by  the  fitful  glare  of  successively 
lighted  matches,  and  they  enjoyed  a  moment  in  which 
the  anomaly  of  their  presence  there  on  that  errand,  so 
remote  from  all  the  facts  of  their  long-established  life 
in  Boston,  realized  itself  for  them. 

"  Think  how  easily  we  might  have  been  murdered 
and  nobody  been  any  the  wiser!"  she  said  when  they 
were  comfortably  outdoors  again. 

"  Yes,  or  made  way  with  ourselves  in  an  access  of 
emotional  insanity,  supposed  to  have  been  induced  by 
unavailing  flat-hunting,"  he  suggested. 

She  fell  in  with  the  notion.  "  I'm  beginning  to  feel 
crazy.  But  I  don't  want  you  to  lose  your  head,  Basil. 
And  I  don't  want  you  to  sentimentalize  any  of  the 
things  you  see  in  New  York.  I  think  you  were  dis 
posed  to  do  it  in  that  street  we  drove  through.  I  don't 
believe  there's  any  real  suffering — not  real  suffering — 
among  those  people ;  that  is,  it  would  be  suffering  from 

our   point  of  view,   but  they've   been   used  to   it  all 

75 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

their  lives,  and  they  don't  feel  their  discomfort  so 
much." 

"  Of  course,  I  understand  that,  and  I  don't  propose 
to  sentimentalize  them.  I  think  when  people  get  used 
to  a  bad  state  of  things  they  had  better  stick  to  it;  in 
fact,  they  don't  usually  like  a  better  state  so  well,  and 
I  shall  keep  that  firmly  in  mind." 

She  laughed  with  him,  and  they  walked  along  the 
L-bestridden  avenue,  exhilarated  by  their  escape  from 
murder  and  suicide  in  that  cellar,  toward  the  nearest 
cross  -  town  track,  which  they  meant  to  take  home  to 
their  hotel.  "  Now  to-night  we  will  go  to  the  theatre," 
she  said,  "  and  get  this  whole  house  business  out  of  our 
minds,  and  be  perfectly  fresh  for  a  new  start  in  the 
morning."  Suddenly  she  clutched  his  arm.  "  Why, 
did  you  see  that  man  ?"  and  she  signed  with  her  head 
toward  a  decently  dressed  person  who  walked  beside 
them,  next  the  gutter,  stooping  over  as  if  to  examine 
it,  and  half  halting  at  times. 

"No.    What?" 

"  Why,  I  saw  him  pick  up  a  dirty  bit  of  cracker 
from  the  pavement  and  cram  it  into  his  mouth  and 
eat  it  down  as  if  he  were  famished.  And  look!  he's 
actually  hunting  for  more  in  those  garbage  heaps !" 

This  was  what  the  decent-looking  man  with  the  hard 
hands  and  broken  nails  of  a  workman  was  doing — like 
a  hungry  dog.  They  kept  up  with  him,  in  the  fascina 
tion  of  the  sight,  to  the  next  corner,  where  he  turned 
down  the  side  street  still  searching  the  gutter. 

They  walked  on  a  few  paces.  Then  March  said,  "  I 
must  go  after  him,"  and  left  his  wife  standing. 

"  Are  you  in  want — hungry  ?"  he  asked  the  man. 

The  man  said  he  could  not  speak  English,  Mon 
sieur. 

March  asked  his  question  in  French. 

76 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

The  man  shrugged  a  pitiful,  desperate  shrug,  "  Mais, 
Monsieur — " 

March  put  a  coin  in  his  hand,  and  then  suddenly 
the  man's  face  twisted  up ;  he  caught  the  hand  of  this 
alms-giver  in  both  of  his  and  clung  to  it.  "  Monsieur ! 
Monsieur !"  he  gasped,  and  the  tears  rained  down  his 
face. 

His  benefactor  pulled  himself  away,  shocked  and 
ashamed,  as  one  is  by  such  a  chance,  and  got  back  to 
his  wife,  and  the  man  lapsed  back  into  the  mystery  of 
misery  out  of  which  he  had  emerged. 

March  felt  it  laid  upon  him  to  console  his  wife  for 
what  had  happened.  "  Of  course,  we  might  live  here 
for  years  and  not  see  another  case  like  that ;  and,  of 
course,  there  are  twenty  places  where  he  could  have 
gone  for  help  if  he  had  known  where  to  find  them." 

"  Ah,  but  it's  the  possibility  of  his  needing  the  help 
so  badly  as  that,"  she  answered.  "  That's  what  I  can't 
bear,  and  I  shall  not  come  to  a  place  where  such  things 
are  possible,  and  we  may  as  well  stop  oitr  house-hunting 
here  at  once." 

"  Yes  ?  And  what  part  of  Christendom  will  you 
live  in  ?  Such  things  are  possible  everywhere  in  our 
conditions." 

"  Then  we  must  change  the  conditions — ' 

"  Oh  no ;  we  must  go  to  the  theatre  and  forget  them. 
We  can  stop  at  Brentano's  for  our  tickets  as  we  pass 
through  Union  Square." 

"  I  am  not  going  to  the  theatre,  Basil.  I  am  going 
home  to  Boston  to-night.  You  can  stay  and  find  a 
flat." 

He  convinced  her  of  the  absurdity  of  her  position, 
and  even  of  its  selfishness;  but  she  said  that  her  mind 
was  quite  made  up  irrespective  of  what  had  happened ; 
that  she  had  been  away  from  the  children  long  enough ; 

77 


A    HAZAK1)    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

that  she  ought  to  be  at  home  to  finish  up  the  work  of 
leaving  it.  The  word  brought  a  sigh.  "  Ah,  I  don't 
know  why  we  should  see  nothing  but  sad  and  ugly 
things  now.  When  we  were  young — 

"  Younger/7  he  put  in.     "  We're  still  young." 

"  That's  what  we  pretend,  but  we  know  better.  But 
I  was  thinking  how  pretty  and  pleasant  things  used  to 
be  turning  up  all  the  time  on  our  travels  in  the  old 
days.  Why,  when  we  were  in  New  York  here  on  our 
wedding  journey  the  place  didn't  seem  half  so  dirty  as 
it  does  now,  and  none  of  these  dismal  things  happened." 

"  It  was  a  good  deal  dirtier,"  he  answered ;  "  and  I 
fancy  worse  in  every  way — hungrier,  raggeder,  more 
wretchedly  housed.  But  that  wasn't  the  period  of  life 
for  us  to  notice  it.  Don't  you  remember,  when  we 
started  to  Niagara  the  last  time,  how  everybody  seemed 
middle-aged  and  commonplace ;  and  when  we  got  there 
there  were  no  evident  brides;  nothing  but  elderly  mar 
ried  people?" 

"  At  least  they  weren't  starving,"  she  rebelled. 

"  No,  you  don't  starve  in  parlor-cars  and  first-class 
hotels ;  but  if  you  step  out  of  them  you  run  your  chance 
of  seeing  those  who  do,  if  you're  getting  on  pretty  well 
in  the  forties.  If  it's  the  unhappy  who  see  unhappi- 
ness,  think  what  misery  must  be  revealed  to  people 
who  pass  their  lives  in  the  really  squalid  tenement- 
house  streets — I  don't  mean  picturesque  avenues  like 
that  we  passed  through." 

"  But  we  are  not  unhappy,"  she  protested,  bringing 
the  talk  back  to  the  personal  base  again,  as  women 
must  to  get  any  good  out  of  talk.  "  We're  really  no 
unhappier  than  we  were  when  we  were  young." 

"  We're  more  serious." 

"  Well,  I  hate  it ;  and  I  wish  you  wouldn't  be  so 
serious,  if  that's  what  it  brings  us  to." 

78 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  will  be  trivial  from  this  on,"  said  March.  "  Shall 
we  go  to  the  Hole  in  the  Ground  to-night  ?" 

"  I  am  going  to  Boston." 

"  It's  much  the  same  thing.  How  do  you  like  that 
for  triviality  ?  It's  a  little  blasphemous,  I'll  allow." 

"  It's  very  silly,"  she  said. 

At  the  hotel  they  found  a  letter  from  the  agent  who 
had  sent  them  the  permit  to  see  Mrs.  Grosvenor  Green's 
apartment.  He  wrote  that  she  had  heard  they  were 
pleased  with  her  apartment,  and  that  she  thought  she 
could  make  the  terms  to  suit.  She  had  taken  her  pas 
sage  for  Europe,  and  was  very  anxious  to  let  the  flat 
before  she  sailed.  She  would  call  that  evening  at  seven. 

"  Mrs.  Grosvenor  Green !"  said  Mrs.  March. 
"  Which  of  the  ten  thousand  flats  is  it,  Basil  ?" 

"  The  gimcrackery,"  he  answered.  u  In  the  Xeno- 
phon,  you  know." 

"  Well,  she  may  save  herself  the  trouble.  I  shall 
not  see  her.  Or  yes — I  must.  I  couldn't  go  away 
without  seeing  what  sort  of  creature  could  have  planned 
that  fly-away  flat.  She  must  be  a  perfect — 

"  Parachute,"  March  suggested. 

"  No :  anybody  so  light  as  that  couldn't  come  down." 

"  Well,  toy  balloon." 

"  Toy  balloon  will  do  for  the  present,"  Mrs.  March 
admitted.  "  But  I  feel  that  naught  but  herself  can  be 
her  parallel  for  volatility." 

When  Mrs.  Grosvenor  Green's  card  came  up  they 
both  descended  to  the  hotel  parlor,  which  March  said 
looked  like  the  saloon  of  a  Moorish  day-boat;  not  that 
he  knew  of  any  such  craft,  but  the  decorations  were 
so  Saracenic  and  the  architecture  so  Hudson  Riverish. 
They  found  there  on  the  grand  central  divan  a  large 
lady  whose  vast  smoothness,  placidity,  and  plumpness 
set  at  defiance  all  their  preconceptions  of  Mrs.  Grosve- 

79 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

nor  Green,  so  that  Mrs.  March  distinctly  paused  with 
her  card  in  her  hand  before  venturing  even  tenta 
tively  to  address  her.  Then  she  was  astonished  at  the 
low,  calm  voice  in  which  Mrs.  Green  acknowledged 
herself,  and  slowly  proceeded  to  apologize  for  calling. 
It  was  not  quite  true  that  she  had  taken  her  passage 
for  Europe,  but  she  hoped  soon  to  do  so,  and  she  con 
fessed  that  in  the  mean  time  she  was  anxious  to  let 
her  flat.  She  was  a  little  worn  out  with  the  care  of 
housekeeping — Mrs.  March  breathed,  "  Oh  yes !"  in  the 
sigh  with  which  ladies  recognize  one  another's  martyr 
dom — and  Mrs.  Green  had  business  abroad,  and  she  was 
going  to  pursue  her  art  studies  in  Paris ;  she  drew  in 
Mr.  Ilcomb's  class  now,  but  the  instruction  was  so  much 
better  in  Paris;  and  as  the  superintendent  seemed  to 
think  the  price  was  the  only  objection,  she  had  ventured 
to  call. 

"  Then  we  didn't  deceive  him  in  the  least,"  thought 
Mrs.  March,  while  she  answered,  sweetly :  "  No ;  we 
were  only  afraid  that  it  would  be  too  small  for  our 
family.  We  require  a  good  many  rooms."  She  could 
not  forego  the  opportunity  of  saying,  "  My  husband  is 
coming  to  New  York  to  take  charge  of  a  literary  peri 
odical,  and  he  will  have  to  have  a  room  to  write  in," 
which  made  Mrs.  Green  bow  to  March,  and  made 
March  look  sheepish.  "  But  we  did  think  the  apart 
ment  very  charming"  (It  was  architecturally  charm 
ing,  she  protested  to  her  conscience),  "  and  we  should 
have  been  so  glad  if  we  could  have  got  into  it."  She 
followed  this  with  some  account  of  their  house-hunting, 
amid  soft  murmurs  of  sympathy  from  Mrs.  Green,  who 
said  that  she  had  been  through  all  that,  and  that  if 
she  could  have  shown  her  apartment  to  them  she  felt 
sure  that  she  could  have  explained  it  so  that,  they  would 
have  seen  its  capabilities  better,  Mrs.  March  assented 

80 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

to  this,  and  Mrs.  Green  added  that  if  they  found  noth 
ing  exactly  suitable  she  would  be  glad  to  have  them 
look  at  it  again ;  and  then  Mrs.  March  said  that  she 
was  going  back  to  Boston  herself,  but  she  was  leaving 
Mr.  March  to  continue  the  search,  and  she  had  no  doubt- 
he  would  be  only  too  glad  to  see  the  apartment  by  day 
light.  "  But  if  you  take  it,  Basil,"  she  warned  him, 
when  they  were  alone,  "  I  shall  simply  renounce  you. 
I  wouldn't  live  in  that  junk-shop  if  you  gave  it  to  me. 
But  who  would  have  thought  she  was  that  kind  of  look 
ing  person  ?  Though  of  course  I  might  have  known 
if  I  had  stopped  to  think  once.  It's  because  the  place 
doesn't  express  her  at  all  that  it's  so  unlike  her.  It 
couldn't  be  like  anybody,  or  anything  that  flies  in  the 
air,  or  creeps  upon  the  earth,  or  swims  in  the  waters 
under  the  earth.  I  wonder  where  in  the  world  she's 
from;  she's  no  New- Yorker;  even  we  can  see  that;  and 
she's  not  quite  a  country  person,  either;  she  seems  like 
a  person  from  some  large  town,  where  she's  been  an 
aesthetic  authority.  And  she  can't  find  good  enough 
art  instruction  in  New  York,  and  has  to  go  to  Paris 
for  it !  Well,  it's  pathetic,  after  all,  Basil.  I  can't 
help  feeling  sorry  for  a  person  who  mistakes  herself 
to  that  extent." 

"  I  can't  help  feeling  sorry  for  the  husband  of  a 
person  who  mistakes  herself  to  that  extent.  What  is 
Mr.  Grosvenor  Green  going  to  do  in  Paris  while  she's 
working  her  way  into  the  Salon  ?" 

"  Well,  you  keep  away  from  her  apartment,  Basil ; 
that's  all  I've  got  to  say  to  you.  And  yet  I  do  like 
some  things  about  her." 

"  I  like  everything  about  her  but  her  apartment," 
said  March. 

"  I  like  her  going  to  be  out  of  the  country,"  said 
his  wife.  "  We  shouldn't  be  overlooked.  And  the 

81 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

place  was  prettily  shaped,  you  can't  deny  it.  And 
there  was  an  elevator  and  steam  heat.  And  the  loca 
tion  is  very  convenient.  And  there  was  a  hall-boy  to 
bring  up  cards.  The  halls  and  stairs  were  kept  very 
clean  and  nice.  But  it  wouldn't  do.  I  could  put  you 
a  folding  bed  in  the  room  where  you  wrote,  and  we 
could  even  have  one  in  the  parlor — 

"  Behind  a  portiere  ?  I  couldn't  stand  any  more 
portieres !" 

"  And  we  could  squeeze  the  two  girls  into  one  room, 
or  perhaps  only  bring  Margaret,  and  put  out  the  whole 
of  the  wash.  Basil !"  she  almost  shrieked,  ik  it  isn't  to 
be  thought  of!" 

He  retorted,  "  I'm  not  thinking  of  it,  my  dear." 

Fulkerson  came  in  just  before  they  started  for  Mrs. 
March's  train,  to  find  out  what  had  become  of  them, 
he  said,  and  to  see  whether  they  had  got  anything  to 
live  in  yet. 

"  N~ot  a  thing,"  she  said.  "  And  I'm  just  going  back 
to  Boston,  and  leaving  Mr.  March  here  to  do  anything 
he  pleases  about  it.  He  has  carte  blanche." 

"  But  freedom  brings  responsibility,  you  know,  Pul- 
kerson,  and  it's  the  same  as  if  I'd  no  choice.  I'm  stay 
ing  behind  because  I'm  left,  not  because  I  expect  to  do 
anything." 

"  Is  that  so  ?"  asked  Fulkerson.  "  Well,  we  must 
see  what  can  be  done.  I  supposed  you  would  be  all 
settled  by  this  time,  or  I  should  have  humped  myself 
to  find  you  something.  Xone  of  those  places  I  gave  you 
amounts  to  anything?" 

"  As  much  as  forty  thousand  others  we've  looked  at," 
said  Mrs.  March.  "  Yes,  one  of  them  does  amount  to 
something.  It  comes  so  near  being  what  we  want  that 
I've  given  Mr.  March  particular  instructions  not  to  go 
near  it." 

82 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW     FORTUNES 

She  told  him  about  Mrs.  Grosvenor  Green  and  her 
flats,  and  at  the  end  he  said: 

"  Well,  well,  we  must  look  out  for  that.  I'll  keep 
an  eye  on  him,  Mrs.  March,  and  see  that  he  doesn't 
do  anything  rash,  and  I  won't  leave  him  till  he's  found 
just  the  right  thing.  It  exists,  of  course ;  it  must  in 
a  city  of  eighteen  hundred  thousand  people,  and  the 
only  question  is  where  to  find  it.  You  leave  him  to  me, 
Mrs.  March;  I'll  watch  out  for  him." 

Fulkerson  showed  some  signs  of  going  to  the  station 
when  he  found  they  were  not  driving,  but  she  bade 
him  a  peremptory  good-bye  at  the  hotel  door. 

"  He's  very  nice,  Basil,  and  his  way  with  you  is 
perfectly  charming.  It's  very  sweet  to  see  how  really 
fond  of  you  he  is.  But  I  didn't  want  him  stringing 
along  up  to  Forty-second  Street  with  us,  and  spoiling 
our  last  moments  together." 

At  Third  Avenue  they  took  the  Elevated,  for  which 
she  confessed  an  infatuation.  She  declared  it  the  most 
ideal  way  of  getting  about  in  the  world,  and  was  not 
ashamed  when  he  reminded  her  of  how  she  used  to  say 
that  nothing  under  the  sun  could  induce  her  to  travel 
on  it.  She  now  said  that  the  night  transit  was  even 
more  interesting  than  the  day,  and  that  the  fleeing  in 
timacy  you  formed  with  people  in  second  and  third 
floor  interiors,  while  all  the  usual  street  life  went  on 
underneath,  had  a  domestic  intensity  mixed  with  a 
perfect  repose  that  was  the  last  effect  of  good  society 
with  all  its  security  and  exclusiveness.  He  said  it 
was  better  than  the  theatre,  of  which  it  reminded  him, 
to  see  those  people  through  their  windows:  a  family 
party  of  work-folk  at  a  late  tea,  some  of  the  men  in 
their  shirt  -  sleeves ;  a  woman  sewing  by  a  lamp;  a 
mother  laying  her  child  in  its  cradle ;  a  man  with  his 

head  fallen  on  his  hands  upon  a  table ;  a  girl  and  her 

7  83 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

lover  leaning  over  the  window-sill  together.  What  sug 
gestion  !  what  drama !  what  infinite  interest !  At  the 
Forty-second  Street  station  they  stopped  a  minute  on 
the  bridge  that  crosses  the  track  to  the  branch  road 
for  the  Central  Depot,  and  looked  up  and  down  the 
long  stretch  of  the  Elevated  to  north  and  south.  The 
track  that  found  and  lost  itself  a  thousand  times  in 
the  flare  and  tremor  of  the  innumerable  lights;  the 
moony  sheen  of  the  electrics  mixing  with  the  reddish 
points  and  blots  of  gas  far  and  near ;  the  architectural 
shapes  of  houses  and  churches  and  towers,  rescued  by 
the  obscurity  from  all  that  was  ignoble  in  them,  and 
the  coming  and  going  of  the  trains  marking  the  stations 
with  vivider  or  fainter  plumes  of  flame-shot  steam — 
formed  an  incomparable  perspective.  They  often  talk 
ed  afterward  of  the  superb  spectacle,  which  in  a  city 
full  of  painters  nightly  works  its  unrecorded  miracles; 
and  they  were  just  to  the  Arachne  rbof  spun  in  iron 
over  the  cross  street  on  which  they  ran  to  the  depot; 
but  for  the  present  they  were  mostly  inarticulate  be 
fore  it.  They  had  another  moment  of  rich  silence  when 
they  paused  in  the  gallery  that  leads  from  the  Elevated 
station  to  the  waiting-rooms  in  the  Central  Depot  and 
looked  down  upon  the  great  night  trains  lying  on  the 
tracks  dim  under  the  rain  of  gas-lights  that  starred 
without  dispersing  the  vast  darkness  of  the  place. 
What  forces,  what  fates,  slept  in  these  bulks  which 
would  soon  be  hurling  themselves  north  and  south  and 
west  through  the  night!  Now  they  waited  there  like 
fabled  monsters  of  Arab  story  ready  for  the  magician's 
touch,  tractable,  reckless,  will-less — organized  lifeless- 
ness  full  of  a  strange  semblance  of  life. 

The  Marches  admired  the  impressive  sight  with  a 
tin-ill  of  patriotic  pride  in  the  fact  that  the  whole 
world  perhaps  could  not  afford  just  the  like.  Then 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

they  hurried  down  to  the  ticket-offices,  and  he  got  her 
a  lower  berth  in  the  Boston  sleeper,  and  went  with  her 
to  the  car.  They  made  the  most  of  the  fact  that  her 
berth  was  in  the  very  middle  of  the  car ;  and  she  prom 
ised  to  write  as  soon  as  she  reached  home.  She  prom 
ised  also  that,  having  seen  the  limitations  of  New  York 
in  respect  to  flats,  she  would  not  be  hard  on  him  if 
he  took  something  not  quite  ideal.  Only  he  must  re 
member  that  it  was  not  to  be  above  Twentieth  Street  nor 
below  Washington  Square;  it  must  not  be  higher  than 
the  third  floor;  it  must  have  an  elevator,  steam  heat, 
hall  -  boys,  and  a  pleasant  janitor.  These  were  es 
sentials;  if  he  could  not  get  them,  then  they  must  do 
without.  But  he  must  get  them. 


XI 


MRS.  MARCH  was  one  of  those  wives  who  exact  a 
more  rigid  adherence  to  their  ideals  from  their  hus 
bands  than  from  themselves.  Early  in  their  married 
life  she  had  taken  charge  of  him  in  all  matters  which 
she  considered  practical.  She  did  not  include  the  busi 
ness  of  bread-winning  in  these ;  that  was  an  affair  that 
might  safely  be  left  to  his  absent-minded,  dreamy  in 
efficiency,  and  she  did  not  interfere  with  him  there. 
But  in  such  things  as  rehanging  the  pictures,  deciding 
on  a  summer  boarding-place,  taking  a  seaside  cottage, 
repapering  rooms,  choosing  seats  at  the  theatre,  seeing 
what  the  children  ate  when  she  was  not  at  table,  shut 
ting  the  cat  out  at  night,  keeping  run  of  calls  and  invita 
tions,  and  seeing  if  the  furnace  was  dampered,  he  had 
failed  her  so  often  that  she  felt  she  could  not  leave  him 
the  slightest  discretion  in  regard  to  a  flat.  Her  total 
distrust  of  his  judgment  in  the  matters  cited  and  others 
like  them  consisted  with  the  greatest  admiration  of  his 
mind  and  respect  for  his  character.  She  often  said 
that  if  he  would  only  bring  these  to  bear  in  such  ex 
igencies  he  would  be  simply  perfect;  but  she  had  long 
given  up  his  ever  doing  so.  She  subjected  him,  there 
fore,  to  an  iron  code,  but  after  proclaiming  it  she  was 
apt  to  abandon  him  to  the  native  lawlessness  of  his 
temperament.  She  expected  him  in  this  event  to  do  as 
he  pleased,  and  she  resigned  herself  to  it  with  consid 
erable  comfort  in  holding  him  accountable.  He  learn- 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ed  to  expect  this,  and  after  suffering  keenly  from  her 
disappointment  with  whatever  he  did  he  waited  patient 
ly  till  she  forgot  her  grievance  and  began  to  extract 
what  consolation  lurks  in  the  irreparable.  She  would 
almost  admit  at  moments  that  what  he  had  done  was  a 
very  good  thing,  but  she  reserved  the  right  to  return 
in  full  force  to  her  original  condemnation  of  it;  and 
she  accumulated  each  act  of  independent  volition  in 
witness  and  warning  against  him.  Their  mass  op 
pressed  but  never  deterred  him.  He  expected  to 
do  the  wrong  thing  when  left  to  his  own  devices, 
and  he  did  it  without  any  apparent  recollection  of 
his  former  misdeeds  and  their  consequences.  There 
was  a  good  deal  of  comedy  in  it  all,  and  some 
tragedy. 

He  now  experienced  a  certain  expansion,  such  as 
husbands  of  his  kind  will  imagine,  on  going  back  to 
his  hotel  alone.  It  was,  perhaps,  a  revulsion  from  the 
pain  of  parting;  and  he  toyed  with  the  idea  of  Mrs. 
Grosvenor  Green's  apartment,  which,  in  its  preposter 
ous  unsuit  ability,  had  a  strange  attraction.  He  felt 
that  he  could  take  it  with  less  risk  than  anything  else 
they  had  seen,  but  he  said  he  wrould  look  at  all  the 
other  places  in  town  first.  He  really  spent  the  greater 
part  of  the  next  day  in  hunting  up  the  owner  of  an 
apartment  that  had  neither  steam  heat  nor  an  elevator, 
but  was  otherwise  perfect,  and  trying  to  get  him  to  take 
less  than  the  agent  asked.  By  a  curious  psychical  oper 
ation  he  was  able,  in  the  transaction,  to  work  himself 
into  quite  a  passionate  desire  for  the  apartment,  while 
he  held  the  Grosvenor  Green  apartment  in  the  back 
ground  of  his  mind  as  something  that  he  could  return 
to  as  altogether  more  suitable.  He  conducted  some 
simultaneous  negotiation  for  a  furnished  house,  which 
enhanced  still  more  the  desirability  of  the  Grosvenor 

87 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Green  apartment.  Toward  evening  he  went  off  at  a 
tangent  far  up-town,  so  as  to  be  able  to  tell  his  wife 
how  utterly  preposterous  the  best  there  would  be  as 
compared  even  with  this  ridiculous  Grosvenor  Green 
gimcrackery.  It  is  hard  to  report  the  processes  of  his 
sophistication ;  perhaps  this,  again,  may  best-  be  left  to 
the  marital  imagination. 

He  rang  at  the  last  of  these  up-town  apartments  as 
it  was  falling  dusk,  and  it  was  long  before  the  janitor 
appeared.  Then  the  man  was  very  surly,  and  said  if 
he  looked  at  the  flat  now  he  would  say  it  was  too  dark, 
like  all  the  rest.  His  reluctance  irritated  March  in 
proportion  to  his  insincerity  in  proposing  to  look  at  it 
at  all.  He  knew  he  did  not  mean  to  take  it  under  any 
circumstances ;  that  he  was  going  to  use  his  inspection 
of  it  in  dishonest  justification  of  his  disobedience  to 
his  wife;  but  he  put  on  an  air  of  offended  dignity. 
"  If  you  don't  wish  to  show  the  apartment,"  he  said, 
"  I  don't  care  to  see  it." 

The  man  groaned,  for  he  was  heavy,  and  no  doubt 
dreaded  the  stairs.  He  scratched  a  match  on  his  thigh, 
and  led  the  way  up.  March  was  sorry  for  him,  and 
he  put  his  fingers  on  a  quarter  in  his  waistcoat-pocket 
to  give  him  at  parting.  At  the  same  time,  he  had  to 
trump  up  an  objection  to  the  flat.  This  was  easy,  for 
it  was  advertised  as  containing  ten  rooms,  and  he  found 
the  number  eked  out  with  the  bath-room  and  two  large 
closets.  "  It's  light  enough,"  said  March,  "  but  I  don't 
see  how  you  make  out  ten  rooms." 

"  There's  ten  rooms,"  said  the  man,  deigning  no 
proof. 

March  took  his  fingers  off  the  quarter,  and  went 
down-stairs  and  out  of  the  door  without  another  word. 
It  would  be  wrong,  it  would  be  impossible,  to  give  the 

man  anything  after  such  insolence.     He  reflected,  with 

88 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

shame,  that  it  was  also  cheaper  to  punish  than  forgive 
him. 

He  returned  to  his  hotel  prepared  for  any  desperate 
measure,  and  convinced  now  that  the  Grosvenor  Green 
apartment  was  not  merely  the  only  thing  left  for  him, 
but  was,  on  its  own  merits,  the  best  thing  in  Xew 
York. 

Fulkerson  was  waiting  for  him  in  the  reading-room, 
and  it  gave  March  the  curious  thrill  with  which  a 
man  closes  with  temptation  when  he  said :  "  Look  here ! 
Why  don't  you  take  that  woman's  flat  in  the  Xenophon  ? 
She's  been  at  the  agents  again,  and  they've  been  at  me. 
She  likes  your  look — or  Mrs.  March's — and  I  guess 
you  can  have  it  at  a  pretty  heavy  discount  from  the 
original  price.  I'm  authorized  to  say  you  can  have 
it  for  one  seventy-five  a  month,  and  I  don't  believe  it 
would  be  safe  for  you  to  offer  one  fifty." 

March  shook  his  head,  and  dropped  a  mask  of  virtu 
ous  rejection  over  his  corrupt  acquiescence.  "  It's  too 
small  for  us — we  couldn't  squeeze  into  it." 

"  Why,  look  here !"  Fulkerson  persisted.  "  How 
many  rooms  do  you  people  want?" 

"  I've  got  to  have  a  place  to  work — 

"  Of  course !  And  you've  got  to  have  it  at  the  Fifth 
Wheel  office." 

"  I  hadn't  thought  of  that,"  March  began.  "  I  sup 
pose  I  could  do  my  work  at  the  office,  as  there's  not 
much  writing — ' 

"  Why,  of  course  you  can't  do  your  work  at  home. 
You  just  come  round  with  me  now,  and  look  at  that 
flat  again." 

"No;  I  can't  do  it." 

"  Why «" 

"  I — I've  got  to  dine." 

"All  right,"  said  Fulkerson.     "Dine  with  me.     I 

89 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

want  to  take  you  round  to  a  little  Italian  place  that  I 
know." 

One  may  trace  the  successive  steps  of  March's  de 
scent  in  this  simple  matter  with  the  same  edification 
that  would  attend  the  study  of  the  self-delusions  and 
obfuscations  of  a  man  tempted  to  crime.  The  process 
is  probably  not  at  all  different,  and  to  the  philosophical 
mind  the  kind  of  result  is  unimportant;  the  process  is 
everything. 

Fulkerson  led  him  down  one  block  and  half  across 
another  to  the  steps  of  a  small  dwelling-house,  trans 
formed,  like  many  others,  into  a  retaurant  of  the  Latin 
ideal,  with  little  or  no  structural  change  from  the  pat 
tern  of  the  lower  middle-class  New  York  home.  There 
were  the  corroded  brownstone  steps,  the  mean  little 
front  door,  and  the  cramped  entry  with  its  narrow 
stairs  by  which  ladies  could  go  up  to  a  dining-room 
appointed  for  them  on  the  second  floor ;  the  parlors  on 
the  first  were  set  about  with  tables,  where  men  smoked 
cigarettes  between  the  courses,  and  a  single  waiter  ran 
swiftly  to  and  fro  with  plates  and  dishes,  and  ex 
changed  unintelligible  outcries  with  a  cook  beyond  a 
slide  in  the  back  parlor.  He  rushed  at  the  new-comers, 
brushed  the  soiled  table-cloth  before  them  with  a  towel 
on  his  arm,  covered  its  worst  stains  with  a  napkin,  and 
brought  them,  in  their  order,  the  vermicelli  soup,  the 
fried  fish,  the  cheese-strewn  spaghetti,  the  veal  cutlets, 
the  tepid  roast  fowl  and  salad,  and  the  wizened  pear 
and  coffee  which  form  the  dinner  at  such  places. 

"  Ah,  this  is  nice  /"  said  Fulkerson,  after  the  laying 
of  the  charitable  napkin,  and  he  began  to  recognize 
acquaintances,  some  of  whom  he  described  to  March 
as  young  literary  men  and  artists  with  whom  they 
should  probably  have  to  do;  others  were  simply  fre 
quenters  of  the  place,  and  were  of  all  nationalities  and 

00 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

religions  apparently — at  least,  several  were  Hebrews 
and  Cubans.  u  You  get  a  pretty  good  slice  of  New 
York  here,"  he  said,  "  all  except  the  frosting  on  top. 
That  you  won't  find  much  at  Maroni's,  though  you  will 
occasionally.  I  don't  mean  the  ladies  ever,  of  course." 
The  ladies  present  seemed  harmless  and  reputable-look 
ing  people  enough,  but  certainly  they  were  not  of  the 
first  fashion,  and,  except  in  a  few  instances,  not  Amer 
icans.  "  It's  like  cutting  straight  down  through  a  fruit 
cake,"  Fulkerson  went  on,  "  or  a  mince-pie,  when  you 
don't  know  who  made  the  pie ;  you  get  a  little  of  every 
thing."  He  ordered  a  small  flask  of  Chianti  with  the 
dinner,  and  it  came  in  its  pretty  wicker  jacket.  March 
smiled  upon  it  with  tender  reminiscence,  and  Fulker 
son  laughed.  u  Lights  you  up  a  little.  I  brought  old 
Dryfoos  here  one  day,  and  he  thought  it  was  sweet- 
oil  ;  that's  the  kind  of  bottle  they  used  to  have  it  in  at 
the  country  drug-stores." 

"  Yes,  I  remember  now ;  but  I'd  totally  forgotten 
it,"  said  March.  "  How  far  back  that  goes !  Who's 
Dryfoos  ?" 

"  Dryfoos  ?"  Fulkerson,  still  smiling,  tore  off  a  piece 
of  the  half-yard  of  French  loaf  which  had  been  sup 
plied  them,  with  two  pale,  thin  disks  of  butter,  and 
fed  it  into  himself.  "  Old  Dryfoos?  Well,  of  course! 
I  call  him  old,  but  he  ain't  so  very.  About  fifty,  or 
along  there." 

"  No,"  said  March,  "  that  isn't  very  old — or  not  so 
old  as  it  used  to  be." 

"  Well,  I  suppose  you've  got  to  know  about  him, 
anyway,"  said  Fulkerson,  thoughtfully.  "  And  I've 
been  wondering  just  how  I  should  tell  you.  Can't 
always  make  out  exactly  how  much  of  a  Bostonian 
you  really  are !  Ever  been  out  in  the  natural  -  gas 

country  2" 

91 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  No"  said  March.  "  I've  had  a  good  deal  of  curi 
osity  about  it,  but  Fve  never  been  able  to  get  away 
except  in  summer,  and  then  we  always  preferred  to  go 
over  the  old  ground,  out  to  Niagara  and  back  through 
Canada,  the  route  we  took  on  our  wedding  journey. 
The  children  like  it  as  much  as  we  do." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  Well,  the  natural-gas 
country  is  worth  seeing.  I  don't  mean  the  Pittsburg 
gas  -  fields,  but  out  in  Northern  Ohio  and  Indiana 
around  Moffitt — that's  the  place  in  the  heart  of  the 
gas  region  that  they've  been  booming  so.  Yes,  you 
ought  to  see  that  country.  If  you  haven't  been  West, 
for  a  good  many  years,  you  haven't  got  any  idea  how 
old  the  country  looks.  You  remember  how  the  fields 
used  to  be  all  full  of  stumps  ?" 

"  I  should  think  so." 

"  Well,  you  won't  see  any  stumps  now.  All  that 
country  out  around  Moffitt  is  just  as  smooth  as  a 
checker  -  board,  and  looks  as  old  as  England.  You 
know  how  we  used  to  burn  the  stumps  out;  and  then 
somebody  invented  a  stump-extractor,  and  we  pulled 
them  out  with  a  yoke  of  oxen.  Now  they  just  touch 
'em  off  with  a  little  dynamite,  and  they've  got  a  cellar 
dug  and  filled  up  with  kindling  ready  for  housekeeping 
whenever  you  want  it.  Only  they  haven't  got  any  use 
for  kindling  in  that  country — all  gas.  I  rode  along  on 
the  cars  through  those  level  black  fields  at  corn-planting 
time,  and  every  once  in  a  while  I'd  come  to  a  place 
with  a  piece  of  ragged  old  stove-pipe  stickin'  up  out 
of  the  ground,  and  blazing  away  like  forty,  and  a  fel 
low  ploughing  all  round  it  and  not  minding  it  any 
more  than  if  it  was  spring  violets.  Horses  didn't  notice 
it,  either.  Well,  they've  always  known  about  the  gas 
out  there ;  they  say  there  are  places  in  the  woods  where 
it's  been  burning  ever  since  the  country  was  settled. 

92 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  But  when  you  come  in  sight  of  Moffitt — my,  oh, 
my !  Well,  you  come  in  smell  of  it  about  as  soon. 
That  gas  out  there  ain't  odorless,  like  the  Pittsburg 
gas,  and  so  it's  perfectly  safe;  but  the  smell  isn't  bad 
—about  as  bad  as  the  finest  kind  of  benzine.  Well, 
the  first  thing  that  strikes  you  when  you  come  to 
Moffitt  is  the  notion  that  there  has  been  a  good  warm, 
growing  rain,  and  the  town's  come  up  overnight. 
That's  in  the  suburbs,  the  annexes,  and  additions. 
But  it  ain't  shabby  —  no  shanty-town  business ;  nice 
brick  and  frame  houses,  some  of  'em  Queen  Anne  style, 
and  all  of  'em  looking  as  if  they  had  come  to  stay.  And 
when  you  drive  up  from  the  depot  you  think  every 
body's  moving.  Everything  seems  to  be  piled  into  the 
street;  old  houses  made  over,  and  new  ones  going  up 
everywhere.  You  know  the  kind  of  street  Main  Street 
always  used  to  be  in  our  section — half  plank-road  and 
turnpike,  and  the  rest  mud-hole,  and  a  lot  of  stores  and 
doggeries  strung  along  with  false  fronts  a  story  higher 
than  the  back,  and  here  and  there  a  decent  building 
Avith  the  gable  end  to  the  public ;  and  a  court-house  and 
jail  and  two  taverns  and  three  or  four  churches.  Well, 
they're  all  there  in  Moffitt  yet,  but  architecture  has 
struck  it  hard,  and  they've  got  a  lot  of  new  buildings 
that  needn't  be  ashamed  of  themselves  anywhere;  the 
new  court-house  is  as  big  as  St.  Peter's,  and  the  Grand 
Opera-House  is  in  the  highest  style  of  the  art.  You 
can't  buy  a  lot  on  that  street  for  much  less  than  you 
can  buy  a  lot  in  New  York — or  you  couldn't  when  the 
boom  was  on ;  I  saw  the  place  just  when  the  boom  was 
in  its  prime.  I  went  out  there  to  work  the  newspapers 
in  the  syndicate  business,  and  I  got  one  of  their  men 
to  write  me  a  real  bright,  snappy  account  of  the  gas; 
and  they  just  took  me  in  their  arms  and  showed  me 
everything.  Well,  it  was  wonderful,  and  it  was  beauti- 

93 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ful,  too !  To  see  a  whole  community  stirred  up  like 
that  was — just  like  a  big  boy,  all  hope  and  high  spirits, 
and  no  discount  on  the  remotest  future;  nothing  but 
perpetual  boom  to  the  end  of  time — I  tell  you  it  warm 
ed  your  blood.  Why,  there  were  some  things  about  it 
that  made  you  think  what  a  nice  kind  of  world  this 
would  be  if  people  ever  took  hold  together,  instead  of 
each  fellow  fighting  it  out  on  his  own  hook,  and  devil 
take  the  hindmost.  They  made  up  their  minds  at 
Moffitt  that  if  they  wanted  their  town  to  grow  they'd 
got  to  keep  their  gas  public  property.  So  they  extended 
their  corporation  line  so  as  to  take  in  pretty  much  the 
whole  gas  region  round  there ;  and  then  the  city  took 
possession  of  every  well  that  was  put  down,  and  held  it 
for  the  common  good.  Anybody  that's  a  mind  to  come 
to  Moffitt  and  start  any  kind  of  manufacture  can  have 
all  the  gas  he  wants  free;  and  for  fifteen  dollars  a  year 
you  can  have  all  the  gas  you  want  to  heat  and  light 
your  private  house.  The  people  hold  on  to  it  for  them 
selves,  and,  as  I  say,  it's  a  grand  sight  to  see  a  whole 
community  hanging  together  and  working  for  the  good 
of  all,  instead  of  splitting  up  into  as  many  different 
cut-throats  as  there  are  able-bodied  citizens.  See  that 
fellow  ?"  Fulkerson  broke  off,  and  indicated  with  a 
twirl  of  his  head  a  short,  dark,  foreign-looking  man 
going  out  of  the  door.  "  They  say  that  fellow's  a 
Socialist.  I  think  it's  a  shame  they're  allowed  to  come 
here.  If  they  don't  like  the  way  we  manage  our  af 
fairs  let  'em  stay  at  home,"  Fulkerson  continued. 
"  They  do  a  lot  of  mischief,  shooting  off  their  mouths 
round  here.  I  believe  in  free  speech  and  all  that;  but 
I'd  like  to  see  these  fellows  shut  up  in  jail  and  left 
to  jaw  one  another  to  death.  We  don't  want  any  of 
their  poison." 

March  did  not  notice  the  vanishing  Socialist.     He 

94 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

was  watching,  with  a  teasing  sense  of  familiarity,  a 
tall,  shabbily  dressed,  elderly  man,  who  had  just  come 
in.  He  had  the  aquiline  profile  uncommon  among 
Germans,  and  yet  March  recognized  him  at  once  as 
German.  His  long,  soft  beard  and  mustache  had  once 
been  fair,  and  they  kept  some  tone  of  their  yellow  in 
the  gray  to  which  they  had  turned.  His  eyes  were 
full,  and  his  lips  and  chin  shaped  the  beard  to  the 
noble  outline  which  shows  in  the  beards  the  Italian 
masters  liked  to  paint  for  their  Last  Suppers.  His 
carriage  was  erect  and  soldierly,  and  March  presently 
saw  that  he  had  lost  his  left  hand.  He  took  his  place 
at  a  table  where  the  overworked  waiter  found  time  to 
cut  up  his  meat  and  put  everything  in  easy  reach  of 
his  right  hand. 

"  Well,"  Fulkerson  resumed,  "  they  took  me  round 
everywhere  in  Moffitt,  and  showed  me  their  big  wells 
—lit  'em  up  for  a  private  view,  and  let  me  hear  them 
purr  with  the  soft  accents  of  a  mass-meeting  of  loco 
motives.  Why,  when  they  let  one  of  these  wells  loose 
in  a  meadow  that  they'd  piped  it  into  temporarily,  it 
drove  the  flame  away  forty  feet  from  the  mouth  of  the 
pipe  and  blew  it  over  half  an  acre  of  ground.  They 
say  when  they  let  one  of  their  big  wells  burn  away  all 
winter  before  they  had  learned  how  to  control  it,  that 
well  kept  up  a  little  summer  all  around  it;  the  grass 
stayed  green,  and  the  flowers  bloomed  all  through  the 
winter.  I  don't  know  whether  it's  so  or  not.  But  I 
can  believe  anything  of  natural  gas.  My!  but  it  was 
beautiful  when  they  turned  on  the  full  force  of  that 
well  and  shot  a  roman  candle  into  the  gas — that's  the 
way  they  light  it — and  a  plume  of  fire  about  twenty 
feet  wide  and  seventy-five  feet  high,  all  red  and  yellow 
and  violet,  jumped  into  the  sky,  and  that  big  roar  shook 

the  ground  under  your  feet!      You  felt  like  saying: 

95 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

'  Don't  trouble  yourself ;  I'm  perfectly  convinced.  I 
believe  in  Moffitt.'  \\V-e-e-ll !"  drawled  Fulkerson, 
with  a  long  breath,  "  that's  where  I  met  old  Dryfoos." 

"  Oh  yes !  —  Dryfoos/'  said  March.  He  observed 
that  the  waiter  had  brought  the  old  one-handed  Ger 
man  a  towering  glass  of  beer. 

"  Yes,"  Fulkerson  laughed.  "  We've  got  round  to 
Dryfoos  again.  I  thought  I  could  cut  a  long  story 
short,  but  I  seem  to  be  cutting  a  short  story  long.  If 
you're  not  in  a  hurry,  though — 

"  Not  in  the  least.     Go  on  as  long  as  you  like." 

"  I  met  him  there  in  the  office  of  a  real-estate  man 
— speculator,  of  course ;  everybody  was,  in  Moffitt ;  but 
a  first-rate  fellow,  and  public-spirited  as  all  get-out; 
and  when  Dryfoos  left  he  told  me  about  him.  Dryfoos 
was  an  old  Pennsylvania  Dutch  farmer,  about  three  or 
four  miles  out  of  Moffitt,  and  he'd  lived  there  pretty 
much  all  his  life;  father  was  one  of  the  first  settlers. 
Everybody  knew  he  had  the  right  stuff  in  him,  but  he 
was  slower  than  molasses  in  January,  like  those  Penn 
sylvania  Dutch.  He'd  got  together  the  largest  and 
handsomest  farm  anywhere  around  there;  and  he  was 
making  money  on  it,  just  like  he  was  in  some  business 
somewhere ;  he  was  a  very  intelligent  man ;  he  took  the 
papers  and  kept  himself  posted;  but  he  was  awfully 
old-fashioned  in  his  ideas.  He  hung  on  to  the  doctrines 
as  well  as  the  dollars  of  the  dads;  it  was  a  real  thing 
with  him.  Well,  when  the  boom  began  to  come  he 
hated  it  awfully,  and  he  fought  it.  He  used  to  write 
communications  to  the  weekly  newspaper  in  Moffitt — 
they've  got  three  dailies  there  now — and  throw  cold 
water  on  the  boom.  He  couldn't  catch  on  no  way.  It 
made  him  sick  to  hear  the  clack  that  went  on  about 
the  gas  the  whole  while,  and  that  stirred  up  the  neigh 
borhood  and  got  into  his  family.  Whenever  he'd  hear 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  a  man  that  had  been  offered  a  big  price  for  his  land 
and  was  going  to  sell  out  and  move  into  town,  he'd 
go  and  labor  with  him  and  try  to  talk  him  out  of  it, 
and  tell  him  how  long  his  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand 
would  last  him  to  live  on,  and  shake  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  before  him,  and  try  to  make  him  believe  it 
wouldn't  be  five  years  before  the  Standard  owned  the 
whole  region. 

"  Of  course,  he  couldn't  do  anything  with  them. 
When  a  man's  offered  a  big  price  for  his  farm,  he 
don't  care  whether  it's  by  a  secret  emissary  from  the 
Standard  Oil  or  not;  he's  going  to  sell  and  get  the  bet 
ter  of  the  other  fellow  if  he  can.  Dryfoos  couldn't 
keep  the  boom  out  of  his  own  family  even.  His  wife 
was  with  him.  She  thought  whatever  he  said  and  did 
was  just  as  right  as  if  it  had  been  thundered  down 
from  Sinai.  But  the  young  folks  were  sceptical,  es 
pecially  the  girls  that  had  been  away  to  school.  The 
boy  that  had  been  kept  at  home  because  he  couldn't  be 
spared  from  helping  his  father  manage  the  farm  was 
more  like  him,  but  they  contrived  to  stir  the  boy  up 
with  the  hot  end  of  the  boom,  too.  So  when  a  fellow 
came  along  one  day  and  offered  old  Dryfoos  a  cool 
hundred  thousand  for  his  farm,  ij  was  all  up  with 
Dryfoos.  He'd  'a'  liked  to  'a'  kept  the  offer  to  himself 
and  not  done  anything  about  it,  but  his  vanity  wouldn't 
let  him  do  that ;  and  when  he  let  it  out  in  his  family 
the  girls  outvoted  him.  They  just  made  him  sell. 

"  He  wouldn't  sell  all.  He  kept  about  eighty  acres 
that  was  off  in  one  piece  by  itself,  but  the  three  hun 
dred  that  had  the  old  brick  house  on  it,  and  the  big 
barn — that  went,  and  Dryfoos  bought  him  a  place  in 
Moffitt  and  moved  into  town  to  live  on  the  interest  of 
his  money.  Just  what  he  had  scolded  and  ridiculed 
everybody  else  for  doing.  Well,  they  say  that  at  first 

07 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

he  seemed  like  he  would  go  crazy.  He  hadn't  any 
thing  to  do.  He  took  a  fancy  to  that  land-agent,  and 
he  used  to  go  and  set  in  his  office  and  ask  him  what  he 
should  do.  i  I  hain't  got  any  horses,  I  hain't  got  any 
COWTS,  I  hain't  got  any  pigs,  I  hain't  got  any  chickens. 
I  hain't  got  anything  to  do  from  sun-up  to  sun-down.' 
The  fellow  said  the  tears  used  to  run  down  the  old 
fellow's  cheeks,  and  if  he  hadn't  been  so  busy  himself 
he  believed  he  should  'a'  cried,  too.  But  most  o'  peo 
ple  thought  old  Dryfoos  was  down  in  the  mouth  because 
he  hadn't  asked  more  for  his  farm,  when  he  wanted  to 
buy  it  back  and  found  they  held  it  at  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand.  People  couldn't  believe  he  was  just 
homesick  and  heartsick  for  the  old  place.  Well,  per 
haps  he  was  sorry  he  hadn't  asked  more ;  that's  human 
nature,  too. 

"  After  a  while  something  happened.  That  land- 
agent  used  to  tell  Dryfoos  to  get  out  to  Europe  with 
his  money  and  see  life  a  little,  or  go  and  live  in  Wash 
ington,  where  he  could  be  somebody;  but  Dryfoos 
wouldn't,  and  he  kept  listening  to  the  talk  there,  and 
all  of  a  sudden  he  caught  on.  He  came  into  that- fel 
low's  one  day  with  a  plan  for  cutting  up  the  eighty 
acres  he'd  kept  into  town  lots ;  and  he'd  got  it  all  plotted 
out  so  well,  and  had  so  many  practical  ideas  about  it, 
that  the  fellow  was  astonished.  He  went  right  in  with 
him,  as  far  as  Dryfoos  would  let  him,  and  glad  of  the 
chance ;  and  they  were  working  the  thing  for  all  it  was 
worth  when  I  struck  Moffitt,  Old  Dryfoos  wanted  me 
to  go  out  and  see  the  Dryfoos  &  Hendry  Addition — 
guess  he  thought  maybe  I'd  write  it  up ;  and  he  drove 
me  out  there  himself.  Well,  it  was  funny  to  see  a 
town  made :  streets  driven  through ;  two  rows  of  shade- 
trees,  hard  and  soft,  planted;  cellars  dug  ajid  houses 
put  up — regular  Queen  Anne  style,  too,  with  stained 

98 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

glass — all  at  once.  Dryfoos  apologized  for  the  streets 
because  they  were  hand-made ;  said  they  expected  their 
street-making  machine  Tuesday,  and  then  they  intended 
to  push  things." 

Fulkerson  enjoyed  the  effect  of  his  picture  on  March 
for  a  moment,  and  then  went  on :  "  He  was  mighty  in 
telligent,  too,  and  he  questioned  me  up  about  my  busi 
ness  as  sharp  as  7  ever  was  questioned ;  seemed  to  kind 
of  strike  his  fancy;  I  guess  he  wanted  to.  find  out  if 
there  was  any  money  in  it.  He  was  making  money, 
hand  over  hand,  then ;  and  he  never  stopped  speculating 
and  improving  till  he'd  scraped  together  three  or  four 
hundred  thousand  dollars ;  they  said  a  million,  but  they 
like  round  numbers  at  Moffitt,  and  I  guess  half  a  mill 
ion  would  lay  over  it  comfortably  and  leave  a  few 
thousands  to  spare,  probably.  Then  he  came  on  to 
!N"ew  York." 

Fulkerson  struck  a  match  against  the  ribbed  side 
of  the  porcelain  cup  that  held  the  matches  in  the 
centre  of  the  table,  and  lit  a  cigarette,  which  he  be 
gan  to  smoke,  throwing  his  head  back  with  a  leisurely 
effect,  as  if  he  had  got  to  the  end  of  at  least  as  much 
of  his  story  as  he  meant  to  tell  without  prompting. 

March  asked  him  the  desired  question.  "  What  in 
the  world  for  ?" 

Fulkerson  took  out  his  cigarette  and  said,  with  a 
smile :  "  To  spend  his  money,  and  get  his  daughters 
into  the  old  Knickerbocker  society.  Maybe  he  thought 
they  were  all  the  same  kind  of  Dutch." 

"  And  has  he  succeeded  ?" 

"  Well,  they're  not  social  leaders  yet.  But  it's  only 
a  question  of  time — generation  or  two — especially  if 
time's  "money,  and  if  Every  Other  Week  is  the  success 
it's  bound  to  be." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say,  Fulkerson,"  said  March, 
8  99 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  a  half -doubting,  half-daunted  laugh,  "  that  lies 
your  Angel  ?" 

"  That's  what  I  mean  to  say,"  returned  Fulkerson. 
"  I  ran  onto  him  in  Broadway  one  day  last  summer. 
If  you  ever  saw  anybody  in  your  life,  you're  sure  to 
meet  him  in  Broadway  again,  sooner  or  later.  That's 
the  philosophy  of  the  bunco  business;  country  people 
from  the  same  neighborhood  are  sure  to  run  up  againsr 
each  other  the  first  time  they  come  to  New  York.  I 
put  out  my  hand,  and  I  said,  i  Isn't  this  Mr.  Dryfoos 
from  Moffitt  ?'  He  didn't  seem  to  have  any  use  for 
my  hand;  he  let  me  keep  it,  and  he  squared  those  old 
lips  of  his  till  his  imperial  stuck  straight  out.  Ever 
see  Bernhardt  in  '  L'Etrangere  '  ?  Well,  the  American 
husband  is  old  Dryfoos  all  over ;  no  mustache,  and  hay- 
colored  chin-whiskers  cut  slanting  from  the  corners  of 
his  mouth.  He  cocked  his  little  gray  eyes  at  me,  and 
says  he :  '  Yes,  young  man ;  my  name  is  Dryfoos,  and 
I'm  from  Moffitt.  But  I  don't  want  no  present  of 
Longfellow's  Works,  illustrated ;  and  I  don't  want  to 
taste  no  fine  teas;  but  I  know  a  policeman  that  does; 
and  if  you're  the  son  of  my  old  friend  Squire  Stroh- 
feldt,  you'd  better  get  out.'  '  Well,  then,'  said  I,  '  how 
would  you  like  to  go  into  the  newspaper  syndicate  busi 
ness  ?'  He  gave  another  look  at  me,  and  then  he  burst 
out  laughing,  and  he  grabbed  my  hand,  and  he  just 
froze  to  it.  I  never  saw  anybody  so  glad. 

"  Well,  the  long  and  the  short  of  it  was  that  I  asked 
him  round  here  to  Maroni's  to  dinner;  and  before  we 
broke  up  for  the  night  we  had  settled  the  financial  side 
of  the  plan  that's  brought  you  to  New  York.  I  can 
see,"  said  Fulkerson,  who  had  kept  his  eyes  fast  on 
March's  face,  "  that  you  don't  more  than  half  like  the 
idea  of  Dryfoos.  It  ought  to  give  you  more  confidence 

in  the  thing  than  you  ever  had.    You  needn't  be  afraid," 

100 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

he  added,  with  some  feeling,  "  that  I  talked  Dryfoos 
into  the  thing  for  my  own  advantage." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Fulkerson !"  March  protested,  all  the 
more  fervently  because  he  was  really  a  little  guilty. 

"  Well,  of  course  not !  I  didn't  mean  you  were. 
But  I  just  happened  to  tell  him  what  I  wanted  to 
go  into  when  I  could  see  my  way  to  it,  and  he  caught 
on  of  his  own  accord.  The  fact  is,"  said  Fulkerson, 
"  I  guess  I'd  better  make  a  clean  breast  of  it,  now 
I'm  at  it.  Dryfoos  wanted  to  get  something  for  that 
boy  of  his  to  do.  He's  in  railroads  himself,  and  he's  in 
mines  and  other  things,  and  he  keeps  busy,  and  he  can't 
bear  to  have  his  boy  hanging  round  the  house  doing 
nothing,  like  as  if  he  was  a  girl.  I  told  him  that  the 
great  object  of  a  rich  man  was  to  get  his  son  into  just 
that  fix,  but  he  couldn't  seem  to  see  it,  and  the  boy 
hated  it  himself.  He's  got  a  good  head,  and  he  wanted 
to  study  for  the  ministry  when  they  were  all  living 
together  out  on  the  farm;  but  his  father  had  the  old- 
fashioned  ideas  about  that.  You  know  they  used  to 
think  that  any  sort  of  stuff  was  good  enough  to  make  a 
preacher  out  of;  but  they  wanted  the  good  timber  for 
business ;  and  so  the  old  man  wouldn't  let  him.  You'll 
see  the  fellow;  you'll  like  him;  he's  no  fool,  I  can  tell 
you;  and  he's  going  to  be  our  publisher,  nominally  at 
first  and  actually  when  I've  taught  him  the  ropes  a 
little." 


XII 


FULKERSON  stopped  and  looked  at  March,  whom  he 
saw  lapsing  into  a  serious  silence.  Doubtless  he  di 
vined  his  uneasiness  with  the  facts  that  had  been  given 
him  to  digest.  He  pulled  out  his  watch  and  glanced 
at  it.  "  See  here,  how  would  you  like  to  go  up  to 
Forty-sixth  Street  with  me,  and  drop  in  on  old  Dry- 
f oos  ?  Now's  your  chance.  He's  going  West  to-mor 
row,  and  won't  be  back  for  a  month  or  so.  They'll  all 
be  glad  to  see  you,  and  you'll  understand  things  better 
when  you've  seen  him  and  his  family.  I  can't  ex 
plain." 

March  reflected  a  moment.  Then  he  said,  with  a 
wisdom  that  surprised  him,  for  he  would  have  liked 
to  yield  to  the  impulse  of  his  curiosity :  "  Perhaps  we'd 
better  wait  till  Mrs.  March  comes  down,  and  let  things 
take  the  usual  course.  The  Dryfoos  ladies  will  want 
to  call  on  her  as  the  last-comer,  and  if  I  treated  myself 
en  gargon  now,  and  paid  the  first  visit,  it  might  com 
plicate  matters." 

"  Well,  perhaps  you're  right,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  I 
don't  know  much  about  these  things,  and  I  don't  be 
lieve  Ma  Dryfoos  does,  either."  He  was  on  his  legs 
lighting  another  cigarette.  "  I  suppose  the  girls  are 
getting  themselves  up  in  etiquette,  though.  Well,  then, 
let's  have  a  look  at  the  Every  Other  Week  building, 
and  then,  if  you  like  your  quarters  there,  you  can  go 
round  and  close  for  Mrs.  Green's  flat." 

102 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

March's  dormant  allegiance  to  his  wife's  wishes  had 
been  roused  by  his  decision  in  favor  of  good  social 
usage.  "  I  don't  think  I  shall  take  the  flat,"  he 
said. 

"  Well,  don't  reject  it  without  giving  it  another  look, 
anyway.  Come  on !" 

He  helped  March  on  with  his  light  overcoat,  and 
the  little  stir  they  made  for  their  departure  caught  the 
notice  of  the  old  German ;  he  looked  up  from  his  beer 
at  them.  March  was  more  than  ever  impressed  with 
something  familiar  in  his  face.  In  compensation  for 
his  prudence  in  regard  to  the  Dryfooses  he  now  in 
dulged  an  impulse.  He  stepped  across  to  where  the 
old  man  sat,  with  his  bald  head  shining  like  ivory 
under  the  gas-jet,  and  his  fine  patriarchal  length  of 
bearded  mask  taking  picturesque  lights  and  shadows, 
and  put  out  his  hand  to  him. 

"  Lindau !     Isn't  this  Mr.  Lindau  ?" 

The  old  man  lifted  himself  slowly  to  his  feet  with 
mechanical  politeness,  and  cautiously  took  March's 
hand.  "  Yes,  my  name  is  Lindau,"  he  said,  slowly, 
while  he  scanned  March's  face.  Then  he  broke  into 
a  long  cry.  "  Ah-h-h-h-h,  my  clear  poy !  my  yong 
f  riendt !  my — my —  Idt  is  Passil  Marge,  not  zo  ?  Ah, 
ha,  ha,  ha !  How  gladt  I  am  to  zee  you !  Why,  I  am 
gladt!  And  you  rememberdt  me?  You  remember 
Schiller,  and  Goethe,  and  Uhland  ?  And  Indianapolis  ? 
You  still  lif  in  Indianapolis?  It  sheers  my  hardt  to 
zee  you.  But  you  are  lidtle  oldt,  too?  Tventy-five 
years  makes  a  difference.  Ah,  I  am  gladt!  Dell  me, 
idt  is  Passil  Marge,  not  zo  ?" 

He  looked  anxiously  into  March's  face,  with  a  gentle 
smile  of  mixed  hope  and  doubt,  and  March  said :  "  As 
sure  as  it's  Berthold  Lindau,  and  I  guess  it's  you.  And 
vou  remember  the  old  times  ?  You  were  as  much  of 

103 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

a  boy  as  I  was,  Lindau.  Are  you  living  in  New  York  ? 
Do  you  recollect  how  you  tried  to  teach  me  to  fence  ? 
I  don't  know  how  to  this  day,  Lindau.  How  good  you 
were,  and  how  patient!  Do  you  remember  how  we 
used  to  sit  up  in  the  little  parlor  back  of  your  printing- 
office,  and  read  Die  Rauber  and  Die  Theilung  der  Erde 
and  Die  Glocke  ?  And  Mrs.  Lindau  ?  Is  she  with — 

"  Deadt — deadt  long  ago.  Eight  after  I  got  home 
from  the  war — tventy  years  ago.  But  tell  me,  you  are 
married  ?  Children  ?  Yes !  Goodt !  And  how  oldt 
are  you  now  ?" 

"  It  makes  me  seventeen  to  see  you,  Lindau,  but  I've 
got  a  son  nearly  as  old." 

"  Ah,  ha,  ha  !     Goodt !     And  where  do  you  lif ?" 

"  Well,  I'm  just  coming  to  live  in  New  York," 
March,  said,  looking  over  at  Fulkerson,  who  had  been 
watching  his  interview  with  the  perfunctory  smile  of 
sympathy  that  people  put  on  at  the  meeting  of  old 
friends.  "  I  want  to  introduce  you  to  my  friend  Mr. 
Fulkerson.  He  and  I  are  going  into  a  literary  enter 
prise  here." 

"  Ah !  zo  ?"  said  the  old  man,  with  polite  interest. 
He  took  Fulkerson's  proffered  hand,  and  they  all  stood 
talking  a  few  moments  together. 

Then  Fulkerson  said,  with  another  look  at  his  watch, 
"  Well,  March,  we're  keeping  Mr.  Lindau  from  his 
dinner." 

"  Dinner !"  cried  the  old  man.  "  Idt's  better  than 
breadt  and  meadt  to  see  Mr.  Marge !" 

"  I  must  be  going,  anyway,"  said  March.  "  But  I 
must  see  you  again  soon,  Lindau.  Where  do  you  live  ? 
I  want  a  long  talk." 

"  And  I.  You  will  find  me  here  at  dinner-time," 
said  the  old  man.  "  It  is  the  best  place  " ;  and  March 

fancied  him  reluctant  to  give  another  address. 

"  104 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

To  cover  his  consciousness  he  answered,  gayly : 
"  Then,  it's  auf  wiedersehen  with  us.  Well !" 

"Also!"  The  old  man  took  his  hand,  and  made  a 
mechanical  movement  with  his  mutilated  arm,  as  if  he 
would  have  taken  it  in  a  double  clasp.  He  laughed  at 
himself.  "  I  wanted  to  gif  you  the  other  handt,  too, 
but  I  gafe  it  to  your  gountry  a  goodt  while  ago." 

"  To  my  country  ?"  asked  March,  with  a  sense  of 
pain,  and  yet  lightly,  as  if  it  were  a  joke  of  the  old 
man's.  "  Your  country,  too,  Lindau  ?" 

The  old  man  turned  very  grave,  and  said,  almost 
coldly,  "  What  gountry  hass  a  poor  man  got,  Mr. 
Marge  ?" 

"  Well,  you  ought  to  have  a  share  in  the  one  you 
helped  to  save  for  us  rich  men,  Lindau,"  March  re 
turned,  still  humoring  the  joke. 

The  old  man  smiled  sadly,  but  made  no  answer  as 
he  sat  down  again. 

"  Seems  to  be  a  little  soured,"  said  Fulkerson,  as 
they  went  down  the  steps.  He  was  one  of  those  Amer 
icans  whose  habitual  conception  of  life  is  unalloyed 
prosperity.  When  any  experience  or  observation  of 
his  went  counter  to  it  he  suffered  something  like  phys 
ical  pain.  He  eagerly  shrugged  away  the  impression 
left  upon  his  buoyancy  by  Lindau,  and  added  to 
March's  continued  silence,  "  What  did  I  tell  you  about 
meeting  every  man  in  New  York  that  you  ever  knew 
before  ?" 

"  I  never  expected  to  meet  Lindau  in  the  world 
again,"  said  March,  more  to  himself  than  to  Fulker 
son.  "  I  had  an  impression  that  he  had  been  killed 
in  the  war.  I  almost  wish  he  had  been." 

"  Oh,  hello,  now !"  cried  Fulkerson. 

March  laughed,  but  went  on  soberly:  "  He  was  a 
man  predestined  to  adversity,  though.  When  I  first 

105 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

knew  him  out  in  Indianapolis  he  was  starving  along 
with  a  sick  wife  and  a  sick  newspaper.  It  was  before 
the  Germans  had  come  over  to  the  Republicans  gen 
erally,  but  Lindau  was  fighting  the  anti-slavery  battle 
just  as  naturally  at  Indianapolis  in  1858  as  he  fought 
behind  the  barricades  at  Berlin  in  1848.  And  yet  he 
was  always  such  a  gentle  soul !  And  so  generous !  He 
taught  me  German  for  the  love  of  it ;  he  wouldn't  spoil 
his  pleasure  by  taking  a  cent  from  me ;  he  seemed  to 
get  enough  out  of  my  being  young  and  enthusiastic,  and 
out  of  prophesying  great  things  for  me.  I  wonder  what 
the  poor  old  fellow  is  doing  here,  with  that  one  hand 
of  his  ?" 

"  Not  amassing  a  very  '  handsome  pittance,'  I  guess, 
as  Artemus  Ward  would  say,"  said  Fulkerson,  getting 
back  some  of  his  lightness.  "  There  are  lots  of  two- 
handed  fellows  in  New  York  that  are  not  doing  much 
better,  I  guess.  Maybe  he  gets  some  writing  on  the 
German  papers." 

"  I  hope  so.  He's  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
men !  He  used  to  be  a  splendid  musician — pianist — 
and  knows  eight  or  ten  languages." 

"  Well,  it's  astonishing,"  said  Fulkersou,  "  how  much 
lumber  those  Germans  can  carry  around  in  their  heads 
all  their  lives,  and  never  work  it  up  into  anything.  It's 
a  pity  they  couldn't  do  the  acquiring,  and  let  out  the  use 
of  their  learning  to  a  few  bright  Americans.  We  could 
make  things  hum,  if  we  could  arrange  'em  that  way." 

He  talked  on,  unheeded  by  March,  who  went  along 
half-consciously  tormented  by  his  lightness  in  the  pen 
sive  memories  the  meeting  with  Lindau  had  called  up. 
Was  this  all  that  sweet,  unselfish  nature  could  come  to  ? 
What  a  homeless  old  age  at  that  meagre  Italian  table 
d'hote,  with  that  tall  glass  of  beer  for  a  half-hour's 
oblivion!  That  shabby  dress,  that  pathetic  mutila- 

106 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

tion !  He  must  have  a  pension,  twelve  dollars  a  month, 
or  eighteen,  from  a  grateful  country.  But  what  else 
did  lie  eke  out  with  ? 

"  Well,  here  we  are,"  said  Fulkerson,  cheerily.  He 
ran  up  the  steps  before  March,  and  opened  the  car 
penter's  temporary  valve  in  the  door  frame,  and  led  the 
way  into  a  darkness  smelling  sweetly  of  unpainted 
wood-work  and  newly  dried  plaster;  their  feet  slipped 
on  shavings  and  grated  on  sand.  He  scratched  a  match, 
and  found  a  candle,  and  then  walked  about  up  and 
down  stairs,  and  lectured  on  the  advantages  of  the  place. 
He  had  fitted  up  bachelor  apartments  for  himself  in  the 
house,  and  said  that  he  was  going  to  have  a  flat  to  let 
on  the  top  floor.  u  I  didn't  offer  it  to  you  because  I 
supposed  you'd  be  too  proud  to  live  over  your  shop; 
and  it's  too  small,  anyway;  only  five  rooms." 

"  Yes,  that's  too  small,"  said  March,  shirking  the 
other  point. 

"  Well,  then,  here's  the  room  I  intend  for  your  of 
fice,"  said  Fulkerson,  showing  him  into  a  large  back 
parlor  one  flight  up.  "  You'll  have  it  quiet  from  the 
street  noises  here,  and  you  can  be  at  home  or  not,  as 
you  please.  There'll  be  a  boy  on  the  stairs  to  find  out. 
Xow,  you  see,  this  makes  the  Grosvenor  Green  flat 
practicable,  if  you  want  it." 

March  felt  the  forces  of  fate  closing  about  him  and 
pushing  him  to  a  decision.  He  feebly  fought  them  off 
till  he  could  have  another  look  at  the  flat.  Then,  baffled 
and  subdued  still  more  by  the  unexpected  presence  of 
Mrs.  Grosvenor  Green  herself,  who  was  occupying  it 
so  as  to  be  able  to  show  it  effectively,  he  took  it.  He 
was  aware  more  than  ever  of  its  absurdities;  he  knew 
that  his  wife  would  never  cease  to  hate  it;  but  he  had 
suffered  one  of  those  eclipses  of  the  imagination  to 
which  men  of  his  temperament  are  subject,  and  in 

107 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

which  he  could  see  no  future  for  his  desires.  He  felt 
a  comfort  in  irretrievably  committing  himself,  and  ex 
changing  the  burden  of  indecision  for  the  burden  of  re 
sponsibility. 

"  I  don't  know/'  said  Fulkerson,  as  they  walked 
back  to  his  hotel  together,  "  but  you  might  fix  it  up 
with  that  lone  widow  and  her  pretty  daughter  to  take 
part  of  their  house  here."  He  seemed  to  be  reminded 
of  it  by  the  fact  of  passing  the  house,  and  March  looked 
up  at  its  dark  front.  He  could  not  have  told  exactly 
why  he  felt  a  pang  of  remorse  at  the  sight,  and  doubt 
less  it  was  more  regret  for  having  taken  the  Grosvenor 
Green  flat  than  for  not  having  taken  the  widow's 
rooms.  Still,  he  could  not  forget  her  wistfulness  when 
his  wife  and  he  were  looking  at  them,  and  her  disap 
pointment  when  they  decided  against  them.  He  had 
toyed,  in  his  after-talk  to  Mrs.  March,  with  a  sort  of 
hypothetical  obligation  they  had  to  modify  their  plans 
so  as  to  meet  the  widow's  want  of  just  such  a  family 
as  theirs;  they  had  both  said  what  a  blessing  it  would 
be  to  her,  and  what  a  pity  they  could  not  do  it;  but 
they  had  decided  very  distinctly  that  they  could  not. 
Now  it  seemed  to  him  that  they  might;  and  he  asked 
himself  whether  he  had  not  actually  departed  as  much 
from  their  ideal  as  if  he  had  taken  board  with  the 
widow.  Suddenly  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  wife  asked 
him  this,  too. 

"  I  reckon,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  that  she  could  have 
arranged  to  give  you  your  meals  in  your  rooms,  and 
it  would  have  come  to  about  the  same  thing  as  house 
keeping." 

"  No  sort  of  boarding  can  be  the  same  as  house 
keeping,"  said  March.  "  I  want  my  little  girl  to  have 
the  run  of  a  kitchen,  and  I  want  the  whole  family  to 
have  the  moral  effect  of  housekeeping.  It's  demoral- 

108 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

izing  to  board,  in  every  way;  it  isn't  a  home,  if  any 
body  else  takes  the  care  of  it  off  your  hands." 

"  Well,  I  suppose  so,"  Fulkerson  assented ;  but 
March's  words  had  a  hollow  ring  to  himself,  and  in 
his  own  mind  he  began  to  retaliate  his  dissatisfaction 
upon  Fulkerson. 

He  parted  from  him  on  the  usual  terms  outwardly, 
but  he  felt  obscurely  abused  by  Fulkerson  in  regard 
to  the  Dryfooses,  father  and  son.  He  did  not  know 
but  Fulkerson  had  taken  an  advantage  of  him  in  al 
lowing  him  to  commit  himself  to  their  enterprise  with 
out  fully  and  frankly  telling  him  who  and  what  his 
backer  was ;  he  perceived  that  with  young  Dryfoos  as 
the  publisher  and  Fulkerson  as  the  general  director 
of  the  paper  there  might  be  very  little  play  for  his 
own  ideas  of  its  conduct.  Perhaps  it  was  the  hurt  to 
his  vanity  involved  by  the  recognition  of  this  fact  that 
made  him  forget  how  little  choice  he  really  had  in 
the  matter,  and  how,  since  he  had  not  accepted  the 
offer  to  edit  the  insurance  paper,  nothing  remained  for 
him  but  to  close  with  Fulkerson.  In  this  moment  of 
suspicion  and  resentment  he  accused  Fulkerson  of 
hastening  his  decision  in  regard  to  the  Grosvenor 
Green  apartment;  he  now  refused  to  consider  it  a  de 
cision,  and  said  to  himself  that  if  he  felt  disposed  to 
do  so  he  would  send  Mrs.  Green  a  note  reversing  it  in 
the  morning.  But  he  put  it  all  off  till  morning  with 
his  clothes,  when  he  went  to  bed ;  he  put  off  even  think 
ing  what  his  wife  would  say;  he  cast  Fulkerson  and 
his  constructive  treachery  out  of  his  mind,  too,  and  in 
vited  into  it  some  pensive  reveries  of  the  past,  when 
he  still  stood  at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  and  could  take 
this  path  or  that.  In  his  middle  life  this  was  not  pos 
sible  ;  he  must  follow  the  path  chosen  long  ago,  wher 
ever  it  led.  He  was  not  master  of  himself,  as  he  once 

109 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

seemed,  but  the  servant  of  those  he  loved;  if  he  could 
do  what  he  liked,  perhaps  he  might  renounce  this  whole 
New  York  enterprise,  and  go  off  somewhere  out  of  the 
reach  of  care ;  but  he  could  not  do  what  he  liked,  that 
was  very  clear.  In  the  pathos  of  this  conviction  he 
dwelt  compassionately  upon  the  thought  of  poor  old 
Lindau;  he  resolved  to  make  him  accept  a  handsome 
sum  of  money — more  than  he  could  spare,  something 
that  he  would  feel  the  loss  of — in  payment  of  the  les 
sons  in  German  and  fencing  given  so  long  ago.  At  the 
usual  rate  for  such  lessons,  his  debt,  with  interest  for 
twenty-odd  years,  would  run  very  far  into  the  hundreds. 
Too  far,  he  perceived,  for  his  wife's  joyous  approval ; 
he  determined  not  to  add  the  interest;  or  he  believed 
that  Lindau  would  refuse  the  interest;  he  put  a  fine 
speech  in  his  mouth,  making  him  do  so ;  and  after  that 
he  got  Lindau  employment  on  Every  Other  Week,  and 
took  care  of  him  till  he  died. 

Through  all  his  melancholy  and  munificence  he  was 
aware  of  sordid  anxieties  for  having  taken  the  Gros- 
venor  Green  apartment.  These  began  to  assume  vis 
ible,  tangible  shapes  as  he  drowsed,  and  to  became 
personal  entities,  from  which  he  woke,  with  little  starts, 
to  a  realization  of  their  true  nature,  and  then  suddenly 
fell  fast  asleep. 

In  the  accomplishment  of  the  events  which  his  rev 
erie  played  with,  there  was  much  that  retroactively 
stamped  it  with  prophecy,  but  much  also  that  was  better 
than  he  forboded.  He  found  that  with  regard  to  the 
Grosvenor  Green  apartment  he  had  not  allowed  for  his 
wife's  willingness  to  get  any  sort  of  roof  over  her  head 
again  after  the  removal  from  their  old  home,  or  for  the 
alleviations  that  grow  up  through  mere  custom.  The 
practical  workings  of  the  apartment  Avere  not  so  bad; 
it  had  its  good  points,  and  after  the  first  sensation  of 

110 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

oppression  in  it  they  began  to  feel  the  convenience  of 
its  arrangement.  They  were  at  that  time  of  life  when 
people  first  turn  to  their  children's  opinion  with  defer 
ence,  and,  in  the  loss  of  keenness  in  their  own  likes  and 
dislikes,  consult  the  young  preferences  which  are  still 
so  sensitive.  It  went  far  to  reconcile  Mrs.  March  to 
the  apartment  that  her  children  were  pleased  with  its 
novelty;  when  this  wore  off  for  them,  she  had  herself 
begun  to  find  it  much  more  easily  manageable  than  a 
house.  After  she  had  put  away  several  barrels  of  gim- 
cracks,  and  folded  up  screens  and  rugs  and  skins,  and 
carried  them  all  off  to  the  little  dark  store-room  which 
the  flat  developed,  she  perceived  at  once  a  roominess 
and  coziness  in  it  unsuspected  before.  Then,  when 
people  began  to  call,  she  had  a  pleasure,  a  superiority, 
in  saying  that  it  was  a  furnished  apartment,  and  in 
disclaiming  all  responsibility  for  the  upholstery  and 
decoration.  If  March  was  by,  she  always  explained 
that  it  was  Mr.  March's  fancy,  and  amiably  laughed  it 
off  with  her  callers  as  a  mannish  eccentricity.  Nobody 
really  seemed  to  think  it  otherwise  than  pretty;  and 
this  again  was  a  triumph  for  Mrs.  March,  because  it 
showed  how  inferior  the  New  York  taste  was  to  the 
Boston  taste  in  such  matters. 

March  submitted  silently  to  his  punishment,  and 
laughed  with  her  before  company  at  his  own  eccen 
tricity.  She  had  been  so  preoccupied  with  the  ad 
justment  of  the  family  to  its  new  quarters  and  cir 
cumstances  that  the  time  passed  for  laying  his 
misgivings,  if  they  were  misgivings,  about  Fulkerson 
before  her,  and  when  an  occasion  came  for  expressing 
them  they  had  themselves  passed  in  the  anxieties  of 
getting  forward  the  first  number  of  Every  Other  Week. 
He  kept  these  from  her,  too,  and  the  business  that 
brought  them  to  New  York  had  apparently  dropped  into 

ill 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

abeyance  before  the  questions  of  domestic  economy  that 
presented  and  absented  themselves.  March  knew  his 
wife  to  be  a  woman  of  good  mind  and  in  perfect  sym 
pathy  with  him,  but  he  understood  the  limitations  of 
her  perspective ;  and  if  he  wras  not  too  wise,  he  was  too 
experienced  to  intrude  upon  it  any  affairs  of  his  till  her 
own  were  reduced  to  the  right  order  and  proportion. 
It  would  have  been  folly  to  talk  to  her  of  Fulkerson's 
con jectur able  uncandor  while  she  was  in  doubt  whether 
her  cook  would  like  the  kitchen,  or  her  two  servants 
would  consent  to  room  together ;  and  till  it  was  decided 
what  school  Tom  should  go  to,  and  whether  Bella  should 
have  lessons  at  home  or  not,  the  relation  which  March 
was  to  bear  to  the  Dryfooses,  as  owner  and  publisher, 
was  not  to  be  discussed  with  his  wife.  He  might  drag 
it  in,  but  he  was  aware  that  with  her  mind  distracted 
by  more  immediate  interests  he  could  not  get  from  her 
that  judgment,  that  reasoned  divination,  which  he  re 
lied  upon  so  much.  She  would  try,  she  would  do  her 
best,  but  the  result  would  be  a  view  clouded  arid  dis 
colored  by  the  effort  she  must  make. 

He  put  the  whole  matter  by,  and  gave  himself  to 
the  details  of  the  work  before  him.  In  this  he  found 
not  only  escape,  but  reassurance,  for  it  became  more 
and  more  apparent  that  whatever  was  nominally  the 
structure  of  the  business,  a  man  of  his  qualifications 
and  his  instincts  could  not  have  an  insignificant  place 
in  it.  He  had  also  the  consolation  of  liking  his  work, 
and  of  getting  an  instant  grasp  of  it  that  grew  con 
stantly  firmer  and  closer.  The  joy  of  knowing  that  he 
had  not  made  a  mistake  was  great.  In  giving  rein  to 
ambitions  long  forborne  he  seemed  to  get  back  to  the 
youth  when  he  had  indulged  them  first ;  and  after  half 
a  lifetime  passed  in  pursuits  alien  to  his  nature,  he  was 
feeling  the  serene  happiness  of  being  mated  through  his 

112 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

work  to  his  early  love.  From  the  outside  the  spectacle 
might  have  had  its  pathos,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  justify 
such  an  experiment  as  he  had  made  at  his  time  of  life, 
except  upon  the  ground  where  he  rested  from  its  con 
sideration — the  ground  of  necessity. 

His  work  was  more  in  his  thoughts  than  himself, 
however,  and  as  the  time  for  the  publication  of  the 
first  number  of  his  periodical  came  nearer,  his  cares 
all  centred  upon  it.  Without  fixing  any  date,  Fulker- 
son  had  announced  it,  and  pushed  his  announcements 
with  the  shameless  vigor  of  a  born  advertiser.  He 
worked  his  interest  with  the  press  to  the  utmost,  and 
paragraphs  of  a  variety  that  did  credit  to  his  ingenuity 
were  afloat  everywhere.  Some  of  them  were  speciously 
unfavorable  in  tone ;  they  criticised  and  even  ridiculed 
the  principles  on  which  the  new  departure  in  literary 
journalism  was  based.  Others  defended  it;  others  yet 
denied  that  this  rumored  principle  was  really  the  prin 
ciple.  All  contributed  to  make  talk.  All  proceeded 
from  the  same  fertile  invention. 

March  observed  with  a  degree  of  mortification  that 
the  talk  was  -very  little  of  it  in  the  New  York  press ; 
there  the  references  to  the  novel  enterprise  were  slight 
and  cold.  But  Fulkerson  said :  "  Don't  mind  that,  old 
man.  It's  the  whole  country  that  makes  or  breaks  a 
thing  like  this;  New  York  has  very  little  to  do  with 
it.  Now  if  it  were  a  play,  it  would  be  different.  N"ew 
York  does  make  or  break  a  play;  but  it  doesn't  make 
or  break  a  book;  it  doesn't  make  or  break  a  magazine. 
The  great  mass  of  the  readers  are  outside  of  New  York, 
and  the  rural  districts  are  what  we  have  got  to  go  for. 
They  don't  read  much  in  New  York;  they  write,  and 
talk  about  what  they've  written.  Don't  you  worry." 

The  rumor  of  Fulkerson's  connection  with  the  enter 
prise  accompanied  many  of  the  paragraphs,  and  ho  was 

113 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

able  to  stay  March's  thirst  for  employment  by  turning 
over  to  him  from  day  to  day  heaps  of  the  manuscripts 
which  began  to  pour  in  from  his  old  syndicate  writers, 
as  well  as  from  adventurous  volunteers  all  over  the 
country.  With  these  in  hand  March  began  practically 
to  plan  the  first  number,  and  to  concrete  a  general 
scheme  from  the  material  and  the  experience  they  fur 
nished.  They  had  intended  to  issue  the  first  number 
with  the  new  year,  and  if  it  had  been  an  affair  of  lit 
erature  alone,  it  would  have  been  very  easy ;  but  it  wras 
the  art  leg  they  limped  on,  as  Fulkerson  phrased  it. 
They  had  not  merely  to  deal  with  the  question  of 
specific  illustrations  for  this  article  or  that,  but  to 
decide  the  whole  character  of  their  illustrations,  and 
first  of  all  to  get  a  design  for  a  cover  which  should 
both  ensnare  the  heedless  and  captivate  the  fastidious. 
These  things  did  not  come  properly  within  March's 
province — that  had  been  clearly  understood — and  for  a 
while  Fulkerson  tried  to  run  the  art  leg  himself.  The 
phrase  was  again  his,  but  it  was  simpler  to  make  the 
phrase  than  to  run  the  leg.  The  difficult  generation, 
at  once  stiff-backed  and  slippery,  with  which  he  had 
to  do  in  this  endeavor,  reduced  even  so  buoyant  an 
optimist  to  despair,  and  after  wasting  some  valuable 
Aveeks  in  trying  to  work  the  artists  himself,  he  deter 
mined  to  get  an  artist  to  work  them.  But  what  artist  ? 
It  could  not  be  a  man  with  fixed  reputation  and  a  fol 
lowing:  he  would  be  too  costly,  and  would  have  too 
many  enemies  among  his  brethren,  even  if  he  would 
consent  to  undertake  the  job.  Fulkerson  had  a  man 
in  mind,  an  artist,  too,  who  would  have  been  the  very 
thing  if  he  had  been  the  thing  at  all.  He  had  talent 
enough,  and  his  sort  of  talent  would  reach  round  the 
whole  situation,  but,  as  Fulkerson  said,  he  \vas  as  many 
kinds  of  an  ass  as  he  was  kinds  of  an  artist. 


PAKT    SECOND 


THE  evening  when  March  closed  with  Mrs.  Green's 
reduced  offer,  and  decided  to  take  her  apartment,  the 
widow  whose  lodgings  he  had  rejected  sat  with  her 
daughter  in  an  upper  room  at  the  back  of  her  house. 
In  the  shaded  glow  of  the  drop-light  she  was  sewing, 
and  the  girl  was  drawing  at  the  same  table.  From  time 
to  time,  as  they  talked,  the  girl  lifted  her  head  and 
tilted  it  a  little  on  one  side  so  as  to  get  some  desired 
effect  of  her  work. 

"  It's  a  mercy  the  cold  weather  holds  off,"  said  the 
mother.  "  We  should  have  to  light  the  furnace,  unless 
we  wanted  to  scare  everybody  away  with  a  cold  house ; 
and  I  don't  know  who  would  take  care  of  it,  or  what 
would  become  of  us,  every  way." 

"  They  seem  to  have  been  scared  away  from  a  house 
that  wasn't  cold,"  said  the  girl.  "  Perhaps  they  might 
like  a  cold  one.  But  it's  too  early  for  cold  yet.  It's 
only  just  in  the  beginning  of  November." 

"  The  Messenger  says  they've  had  a  sprinkling  of 
snow." 

"  Oh  yes,  at  St.  Barnaby !  I  don't  know  when  they 
don't  have  sprinklings  of  snow  there.  I'm  awfully  glad 
we  haven't  got  that  winter  before  us." 

The  widow  sighed  as  mothers  do  who  feel  the  con 
trast  their  experience  opposes  to  the  hopeful  reckless 
ness  of  such  talk  as  this.  "  We  may  have  a  worse 
winter  here,"  she  said,  darkly. 

117 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Then  I  couldn't  stand  it,"  said  the  girl,  "  and  I 
should  go  in  for  lighting  out  to  Florida  double-quick." 

"  And  how  would  you  get  to  Florida  ?"  demanded  her 
mother,  severely. 

"  Oh,  by  the  usual  conveyance — Pullman  vestibuled 
train,  I  suppose.  What  makes  you  so  blue,  mamma?" 
The  girl  was  all  the  time  sketching  away,  rubbing  out, 
lifting  her  head  for  the  effect,  and  then  bending  it  over 
her  work  again  without  looking  at  her  mother. 

"  I  am  not  blue,  Alma.  But  I  cannot  endure  this — 
this  hopefulness  of  yours." 

"  Why  ?    What  harm  does  it  do  ?" 

"  Harm  ?"  echoed  the  mother. 

Pending  the  effort  she  must  make  in  saying,  the  girl 
cut  in :  "  Yes,  harm.  You've  kept  your  despair  dusted 
off  and  ready  for  use  at  an  instant's  notice  ever  since 
we  came,  and  what  good  has  it  done?  I'm  going  to 
keep  on  hoping  to  the  bitter  end.  That's  what  papa 
did." 

It  was  what  the  Rev.  Archibald  Leighton  had  done 
with  all  the  consumptive's  buoyancy.  The  morning  he 
died  he  told  them  that  now  he  had  turned  the  point  and 
was  really  going  to  get  well.  The  cheerfulness  was  not 
only  in  his  disease,  but  in  his  temperament.  Its  ex 
cess  was  always  a  little  against  him  in  his  church- 
work,  and  Mrs.  Leighton  was  right  enough  in  feeling 
that  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  ballast  of  her  instinctive 
despondency  he  would  have  made  shipwreck  of  such 
small  chances  of  prosperity  as  befell  him  in  life.  It 
was  not  from  him  that  his  daughter  got  her  talent, 
though  he  had  left  her  his  temperament  intact  of  his 
widow's  legal  thirds.  He  was  one  of  those  men  of 
whom  the  country  people  say  when  he  is  gone  that  the 
woman  gets  along  better  without  him.  Mrs.  Leighton 
had  long  eked  out  their  income  by  taking  a  summer 

118 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

boarder  or  two,  as  a  great  favor,  into  her  family ;  and 
when  the  greater  need  came,  she  frankly  gave  up  her 
house  to  the  summer-folks  (as  they  call  them  in  the 
country),  and  managed  it  for  their  comfort  from  the 
small  quarter  of  it  in  which  she  shut  herself  up  with 
her  daughter. 

The  notion  of  shutting  up  is  an  exigency  of  the 
rounded  period.  The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  Alma 
Leighton  was  not  shut  up  in  any  sense  whatever.  She 
was  the  pervading  light,  if  not  force,  of  the  house.  She 
was  a  good  cook,  and  she  managed  the  kitchen  with  the 
help  of  an  Irish  girl,  while  her  mother  looked  after  the 
rest  of  the  housekeeping.  But  she  was  not  systematic ; 
she  had  inspiration  hut  riot  discipline,  and  her  mother 
mourned  more  over  the  days  when  Alma  left  the  whole 
dinner  to  the  Irish  girl  than  she  rejoiced  in  those  when 
one  of  Alma's  great  thoughts  took  form  in  a  chicken- 
pie  of  incomparable  savor  or  in  a  matchless  pudding. 
The  off-days  came  when  her  artistic  nature  was  express 
ing  itself  in  charcoal,  for  she  drew  to  the  admiration 
of  all  among  the  lady  boarders  who  could  not  draw. 
The  others  had  their  reserves;  they  readily  conceded 
that  Alma  had  genius,  but  they  were  sure  she  needed 
instruction.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were  not  so  rad 
ical  as  to  agree  with  the  old  painter  who  came  every 
summer  to  paint  the  elms  of  the  St.  Barnaby  meadows. 
He  contended  that  she  needed  to  be  a  man  in  order  to 
amount  to  anything ;  but  in  this  theory  he  was  opposed 
by  an  authority  of  his  own  sex,  whom  the  lady  sketchers 
believed  to  speak  with  more  impartiality  in  a  matter 
concerning  them  as  much  as  Alma  Leighton.  He  said 
that  instruction  would  do,  and  he  was  not  only  younger 
and  handsomer,  but  he  was  fresher  from  the  schools 
than  old  Harrington,  who,  even  the  lady  sketchers  could 
see,  painted  in  an  obsolescent  manner.  His  name  was 

119 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Beaton — Angus  Beaton ;  but  he  was  not  Scotch,  or  not 
more  Scotch  than  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  was.  His 
father  was  a  Scotchman,  but  Beaton  was  born  in  Syra 
cuse,  New  York,  and  it  had  taken  only  three  years  in 
Paris  to  obliterate  many  traces  of  native  and  ancestral 
manner  in  him.  He  wore  his  black  beard  cut  shorter 
than  his  mustache,  and  a  little  pointed;  he  stood  with 
his  shoulders  well  thrown  back  and  with  a  lateral  curve 
of  his  person  when  he  talked  about  art,  which  would 
alone  have  carried  conviction  even  if  he  had  not  had 
a  thick,  dark  bang  coming  almost  to  the  browTs  of  his 
mobile  gray  eyes,  and  had  not  spoken  English  with 
quick,  staccato  impulses,  so  as  to  give  it  the  effect  of 
epigrammatic  and  sententious  French.  One  of  the 
ladies  said  that  you  always  thought  of  him  as  having 
spoken  French  after  it  was  over,  and  accused  herself 
of  wrong  in  not  being  able  to  feel  afraid  of  him.  None 
of  the  ladies  was  afraid  of  him,  though  they  could  not 
believe  that  he  was  really  so  deferential  to  their  work 
as  he  seemed ;  and  they  knew,  when  he  would  not  criti 
cise  Mr.  Harrington's  work,  that  he  was  just  acting 
from  principle. 

They  may  or  may  not  have  known  the  deference 
with  which  he  treated  Alma's  work;  but  the  girl  her 
self  felt  that  his  abrupt,  impersonal  comment  recog 
nized  her  as  a  real  sister  in  art.  He  told  her  she  ought 
to  come  to  New  York,  and  draw  in  the  League,  or  get 
into  some  painter's  private  class;  and  it  was  the  sense 
of  duty  thus  appealed  to  which  finally  resulted  in  the 
hazardous  experiment  she  and  her  mother  were  now 
making.  There  were  no  logical  breaks  in  the  chain  of 
their  reasoning  from  past  success  with  boarders  in  St. 
Barnaby  to  future  success  with  boarders  in  New  York. 
Of  course  the  outlay  was  much  greater.  The  rent  of 
the  furnished  house  they  had  taken  was  such  that  if 

120 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

they  failed  their  experiment  would  be  little  less  than 
ruinous. 

But  they  were  not  going  to  fail ;  that  was  what  Alma 
contended,  with  a  hardy  courage  that  her  mother  some 
times  felt  almost  invited  failure,  if  it  did  not  deserve 
it.  She  was  one  of  those  people  who  believe  that  if  you 
dread  harm  enough  it  is  less  likely  to  happen.  She 
acted  on  this  superstition  as  if  it  were  a  religion. 

"  If  it  had  not  been  for  my  despair,  as  you  call  it, 
Alma,"  she  answered,  "  I  don't  know  where  we  should 
have  been  now." 

"  I  suppose  we  should  have  been  in  St.  Barnaby," 
said  the  girl.  "  And  if  it's  worse  to  be  in  New  York, 
you  see  what  your  despair's  done,  mamma.  But  what's 
the  use  ?  You  meant  well,  and  I  don't  blame  you.  You 
can't  expect  even  despair  to  come  out  always  just  the 
way  you  want  it.  Perhaps  you've  used  too  much  of 
it."  The  girl  laughed,  and  Mrs.  Leighton  laughed,  too. 
Like  every  one  else,  she  was  not  merely  a  prevailing 
mood,  as  people  are  apt  to  be  in  books,  but  was  an 
irregularly  spheroidal  character,  with  surfaces  that 
caught  the  different  lights  of  circumstance  and  re 
flected  them.  Alma  got  up  and  took  a  pose  before  the 
mirror,  which  she  then  transferred  to  her  sketch.  The 
room  was  pinned  about  with  other  sketches,  which 
showed  with  fantastic  indistinctness  in  the  shaded  gas 
light.  Alma  held  up  the  drawing.  "  How  do  you 
like  it?" 

Mrs.  Leighton  bent  forward  over  her  sewing  to  look 
at  it.  "  You've  got  the  man's  face  rather  weak." 

"  Yes,  that's  so.  Either  I  see  all  the  hidden  weak 
ness  that's  in  men's  natures,  and  bring  it  to  the  sur 
face  in  their  figures,  or  else  I  put  my  own  weakness  into 
them.  Either  way,  it's  a  drawback  to  their  presenting 

a  truly  manly  appearance.     As  long  as  I  have  one  of 

121 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

the  miserable  objects  before  me,  I  can  draw  him;  but 
as  soon  as  his  back's  turned  I  get  to  putting  ladies  into 
men's  clothes.  I  should  think  you'd  be  scandalized, 
mamma,  if  you  were  a  really  feminine  person.  It 
must  be  your  despair  that  helps  you  to  bear  up.  But 
what's  the  matter  with  the  young  lady  in  young  lady's 
clothes?  Any  dust  on  her?" 

"  What  expressions  !"  said  Mrs.  Leighton.  "  Keally, 
Alma,  for  a  refined  girl  you  are  the  most  unrefined!" 

"  Go  on — about  the  girl  in  the  picture !"  said  Alma, 
slightly  knocking  her  mother  on  the  shoulder,  as  she 
stood  over  her. 

"  I  don't  see  anything  to  her.     What's  she  doing  ?" 

"  Oh,  just  being  made  love  to,  I  suppose." 

"  She's  perfectly  insipid  !" 

"  You're  awfully  articulate,  mamma !  Now,  if  Mr. 
Wetmore  were  to  criticise  that  picture  he'd  draw  a  circle 
round  it  in  the  air,  and  look  at  it  through  that,  and 
tilt  his  head  first  on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other, 
and  then  look  at  you,  as  if  you  were  a  figure  in  it,  and 
then  collapse  awhile,  and  moan  a  little  and  gasp, 
'  Isn't  your  young  lady  a  little  too — too—'  and  then 
he'd  try  to  get  the  word  out  of  you,  and  groan  and 
suffer  some  more ;  and  you'd  say,  '  She  is,  rather,'  and 
that  would  give  him  courage,  and  he'd  say,  i  I  don't 
mean  that  she's  so  very —  '  Of  course  not.'  f  You 
understand  ?'  '  Perfectly.  I  see  it  myself,  now.' 
'  Well,  then  ' — and  he'd  take  your  pencil  and  begin  to 
draw — '  I  should  give  her  a  little  more —  Ah  ?'  *  Yes, 
I  see  the  difference.'  '  You  see  the  difference  ?'  And 
he'd  go  off  to  some  one  else,  and  you'd  know  that  you'd 
been  doing  the  wishy  -  washiest  thing  in  the  world, 
though  he  hadn't  spoken  a  word  of  criticism,  and 
couldn't.  But  he  wouldn't  have  noticed  the  expres 
sion  at  all;  he'd  have  shown  you  where  your  drawing 

122 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

was  bad.  He  doesn't  care  for  what  he  calls  the  lit 
erature  of  a  thing;  he  says  that  will  take  care  of  itself 
if  the  drawing's  good.  He  doesn't  like  my  doing  these 
chic  things;  hut  I'm  going  to  keep  it  up,  for  I  think 
it's  the  nearest  way  to  illustrating." 

She  took  her  sketch  and  pinned  it  up  on  the  door. 

"  And  has  Mr.  Beaton  been  about,  yet  ?"  asked  her 
mother. 

"  No,"  said  the  girl,  with  her  back  still  turned ;  and 
she  added,  "  I  believe  he's  in  New  York ;  Mr.  Wet- 
more's  seen  him." 

"  It's  a  little  strange  he  doesn't  call." 

"  It  would  be  if  he  were  not  an  artist.  But  artists 
never  do  anything  like  other  people.  He  was  on  his 
good  behavior  while  he  was  with  us,  and  he's  a  great 
deal  more  conventional  than  most  of  them;  but  even 
he  can't  keep  it  up.  That's  what  makes  me  really  think 
that  women  can  never  amount  to  anything  in  art.  They 
keep  all  their  appointments,  and  fulfil  all  their  duties 
just  as  if  they  didn't  know  anything  about  art.  Well, 
most  of  them  don't.  We've  got  that  new  model  to-day." 

"  What  new  model  ?" 

"  The  one  Mr.  Wetmore  was  telling  us  about — the 
old  German ;  he's  splendid.  He's  got  the  most  beauti 
ful  head ;  just  like  the  old  masters'  things.  He  used 
to  be  Humphrey  Williams's  model  for  his  Biblical 
pieces;  but  since  he's  dead,  the  old  man  hardly  gets 
anything  to  do.  Mr.  Wetmore  says  there  isn't  any 
body  in  the  Bible  that  Williams  didn't  paint  him  as. 
He's  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  in  all  his  Old  Testa 
ment  pictures,  and  he's  Joseph,  Peter,  Judas  Iscariot, 
and  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  in  the  New." 

"  It's  a  good  thing  people  don't  know  how  artists 
work,  or  some  of  the  most  sacred  pictures  would  have 
no  influence,"  said  Mrs.  Leighton. 

123 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Why,  of  ccmrse  not !"  cried  the  girl.  "  And  the 
influence  is  the  last  thing  a  painter  thinks  of — or 
supposes  he  thinks  of.  What  he  knows  he's  anxious 
about  is  the  drawing  and  the  color.  But  people  will 
never  understand  how  simple  artists  are.  When  I  re 
flect  what  a  complex  and  sophisticated  being  I  am,  I'm 
afraid  I  can  never  come  to  anything  in  art.  Or  I 
should  be  if  I  hadn't  genius." 

"  Do  you  think  Mr.  Beaton  is  very  simple  ?"  asked 
Mrs.  Leighton. 

"  Mr.  Wetmore  doesn't  think  he's  very  much  of  an 
artist.  He  thinks  he  talks  too  well.  They  believe  that 
if  a  man  can  express  himself  clearly  he  can't  paint." 

"  And  what  do  you  believe  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  can  express  myself,  /oo." 

The  mother  seemed  to  be  satisfied  with  this  evasion. 
After  a  while  she  said,  "  I  presume  he  will  call  when  he 
gets  settled." 

The  girl  made  no  answer  to  this.  "  One  of  the  girls 
says  that  old  model  is  an  educated  man.  He  was  in 
the  war,  and  lost  a  hand.  Doesn't  it  seem  a  pity  for 
such  a  man  to  have  to  sit  to  a  class  of  affected  geese 
like  us  as  a  model  ?  I  declare  it  makes  me  sick.  And 
we  shall  keep  him  a  week,  and  pay  him  six  or  seven 
dollars  for  the  use  of  his  grand  old  head,  and  then 
what  will  he  do  ?  The  last  time  he  was  regularly  em 
ployed  was  when  Mr.  Mace  was  working  at  his  Damas 
cus  Massacre.  Then  he  wanted  so  many  Arab  sheiks 
and  Christian  elders  that  he  kept  old  Mr.  Lindau 
steadily  employed  for  six  months.  Now  he  has  to  pick 
up  odd  jobs  where  he  can." 

"  I  suppose  he  has  his  pension,"  said  Mrs.  Leighton. 

"No;  one  of  the  girls"-— that  was  the  way  Alma 
always  described  her  fellow-students — "  says  he  has  no 

pension.     He  didn't  apply  for  it  for  a  long  time,  and 

" 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

then  there  was  a  hitch  about  it,  and  it  was  somethinged 
— vetoed,  I  believe  she  said/7 

"  Who  vetoed  it  ?"  asked  Mrs.  Leighton,  with  some 
curiosity  about  the  process,  which  she  held  in  reserve. 

"  I  don't  know — whoever  vetoes  things.  I  wonder 
what  Mr.  Wetmore  does  think  of  us — his  class.  We 
must  seem  perfectly  crazy.  There  isn't  one  of  us  really 
knows  what  she's  doing  it  for,  or  what  she  expects  to 
happen  when  she's  done  it.  I  suppose  every  one  thinks 
she  has  genius.  I  know  the  Nebraska  widow  does,  for 
she  says  that  unless  you  have  genius  it  isn't  the,  least 
use.  Everybody's  puzzled  to  know  what  she  does  with 
her  baby  when  she's  at  work  —  whether  she  gives  it 
soothing  syrup.  I  wonder  how  Mr.  Wetmore  can  keep 
from  laughing  in  our  faces.  I  know  he  does  behind  our 
backs." 

Mrs.  Leighton's  mind  wandered  back  to  another 
point.  "  Then  if  he  says  Mr.  Beaton  can't  paint,  I 
presume  he  doesn't  respect  him  very  much." 

"  Oh,  he  never  said  he  couldn't  paint.  But  I  know 
he  thinks  so.  He  says  he's  an  excellent  critic." 

"  Alma,"  her  mother  said,  with  the  effect  of  break 
ing  off,  "  what  do  you  suppose  is  the  reason  he  hasn't 
been  near  us?" 

"  Why,  I  don't  know,  mamma,  except  that  it  would 
have  been  natural  for  another  person  to  come,  and  he's 
an  artist — at  least,  artist  enough  for  that." 

"  That  doesn't  account  for  it  altogether.  He  was 
very  nice  at  St.  Barnaby,  and  seemed  so  interested  in 
you — your  work." 

"  Plenty  of  people  were  nice  at  St.  Barnaby.  That 
rich  Mrs.  Horn  couldn't  contain  her  joy  when  she  heard 
we  were  coming  to  New  York,  but  she  hasn't  poured  in 
upon  us  a  great  deal  since  we  £ot  here." 

"  But  that's  different.     She's  very  fashionable,  and 

125 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

she's  taken  up  with  her  own  set.  But  Mr.  Beaton's  one 
of  our  kind." 

"  Thank  you.  Papa  wasn't  quite  a  tombstone-cutter, 
mamma." 

"  That  makes  it  all  the  harder  to  bear.  He  can't 
be  ashamed  of  us.  Perhaps  he  doesn't  know  where 
we  are." 

"  Do  you  wish  to  send  him  your  card,  mamma  ?" 
The  girl  flushed  and  towered  in  scorn  of  the  idea. 

"  Why,  no,  Alma,"  returned  her  mother. 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Alma. 

But  Mrs.  Leighton  was  not  so  easily  quelled.  She 
had  got  her  mind  on  Mr.  Beaton,  and  she  could  not 
detach  it  at  once.  Besides,  she  was  one  of  those  women 
(they  are  commoner  than  the  same  sort  of  men)  whom 
it  does  not  pain  to  take  out  their  most  intimate  thoughts 
and  examine  them  in  the  light  of  other  people's  opin 
ions.  "  But  I  don't  see  how  he  can  behave  so.  He 
must  know  that — " 

"  That  what,,  mamma  ?"  demanded  the  girl. 

"  That  he  influenced  us  a  great  deal  in  coming — " 

"  He  didn't.  If  he  dared  to  presume  to  think  such 
a  thing—" 

"  Now,  Alma,"  said  her  mother,  with  the  clinging 
persistence  of  such  natures,  "  you  know  he  did.  And 
it's  no  use  for  you  to  pretend  that  we  didn't  count  upon 
him  in — in  every  way.  You  may  not  have  noticed  his 
attentions,  and  I  don't  say  you  did,  but  others  certainly 
did;  and  I  must  say  that  I  didn't  expect  he  would 
drop  us  so." 

"  Drop  us !"  cried  Alma,  in  a  fury.     "  Oh  !" 

"  Yes,  drop  us,  Alma.  He  must  know  where  we 
are.  Of  course,  Mr.  Wetmore's  spoken  to  him  about 
you,  and  it's  a  shame  that  he  hasn't  been  near  us.  I 
should  have  thought  common  gratitude,  common  de- 

126 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

cency,  would  have  brought  him  after — after  all  we  did 
for  him." 

"We  did  nothing  for  him — nothing!  He  paid  his 
board,  and  that  ended  it." 

"  No,  it  didn't,  Alma.  You  know  what  he  used  to 
say — about  its  being  like  home,  and  all  that;  and  I 
must  say  that  after  his  attentions  to  you,  and  all  the 
things  you  told  me  he  said,  I  expected  something  very 
dif- 

A  sharp  peal  of  the  door  -  bell  thrilled  through  the 
house,  and  as  if  the  pull  of  the  bell-wire  had  twitched 
her  to  her  feet,  Mrs.  Leigh  ton  sprang  up  and  grappled 
with  her  daughter  in  their  common  terror. 

They  both  glared  at  the  clock  and  made  sure  that 
it  was  five  minutes  after  nine.  Then  they  abandoned 
themselves  some  moments  to  the  unrestricted  play  of 
their  apprehensions. 


II 


"  WHY,  Alma,"  whispered  the  mother,  "  who  in  the 
world  can  it  be  at  this  time  of  night  I  You  don't 
suppose  he — 

"  Well,  I'm  not  going  to  the  door,  anyhow,  mother, 
I  don't  care  who  it  is;  and,  of  course,  he  wouldn't  be 
such  a  goose  as  to  come  at  this  hour."  She  put  on  a 
look  of  miserable  trepidation,  and  shrank  back  from 
the  door,  while  the  hum  of  the  bell  died  away  in  the 
hall. 

"  What  shall  we  do  ?"  asked  Mrs.  Leighton,  help 
lessly. 

"  Let  him  go  away — whoever  they  are,"  said  Alma. 

Another  and  more  peremptory  ring  forbade  them 
refuge  in  this  simple  expedient. 

"  Oh,  dear !  what  shall  we  do  ?  Perhaps  it's  a 
despatch."  , 

The  conjecture  moved  Alma  to  no  more  than  a  rigid 
stare.  "  I  shall  not  go,"  she  said.  A  third  ring  more 
insistent  than  the  others  followed,  and  she  said :  "  You 
go  ahead,  mamma,  and  I'll  come  behind  to  scream  if 
it's  anybody.  We  can  look  through  the  side-lights  at 
the  door  first" 

Mrs.  Leighton  fearfully  led  the  way  from  the  back 
chamber  where  they  had  been  sitting,  and  slowly  de 
scended  the  stairs.  Alma  came  behind  and  turned  up 
the  hall  gas-jet  with  a  sudden  flash  that  made  them 
both  jump  a  little.  The  gas  inside  rendered  it  more 

128 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

difficult  to  tell  who  was  on  the  threshold,  but  Mrs. 
Leighton  decided  from  a  timorous  peep  through  the 
scrims  that  it  was  a  lady  and  gentleman.  Something 
in  this  distribution  of  sex  emboldened  her ;  she  took  her 
life  in  her  hand,  and  opened  the  door. 

The  lady  spoke.  "  Does  Mrs.  Leighton  live  heah  ?" 
she  said,  in  a  rich,  throaty  voice;  and  she  feigned  a 
reference  to  the  agent's  permit  she  held  in  her  hand. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Leighton ;  she  mechanically  oc 
cupied  the  doorway,  while  Alma  already  quivered 
behind  her  with  impatience  of  her  impoliteness. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  lady,  who  began  to  appear  more  and 
more  a  young  lady,  "  Ah  didn't  know  but  Ah  had 
mistaken  the  hoase.  Ah  suppose  it's  rather  late  to  see 
the  apawtments,  and  Ah  most  ask  you  to  pawdon  us." 
She  put  this  tentatively,  with  a  delicately  growing 
recognition  of  Mrs.  Leighton  as  the  lady  of  the  house, 
and  a  humorous  intelligence  of  the  situation  in  the 
glance  she  threw  Alma  over  her  mother's  shoulder. 
"  Ah'm  afraid  we  most  have  frightened  you." 

"  Oh,  not  at  all,"  said  Alma;  and  at  the  same  time 
her  mother  said,  "  Will  you  walk  in,  please  ?" 

The  gentleman  promptly  removed  his  hat  and  made 
the  Leightons  an  inclusive  bow.  "  You  awe  very  kind, 
madam,  and  I  am  sorry  for  the  trouble  we  awe  giving 
you."  He  was  tall  and  severe  -  looking,  with  a  gray, 
trooperish  mustache  and  iron-gray  hair,  and,  as  Alma 
decided,  iron  -  gray  eyes.  His  daughter  was  short, 
plump,  and  fresh-colored,  with  an  effect  of  liveliness 
that  did  not  all  express  itself  in  her  broad-vowelled, 
rather  formal  speech,  with  its  odd  valuations  of  some 
of  the  auxiliary  verbs,  and  its  total  elision  of  the 
canine  letter. 

"  We  awe  from  the  Soath,"  she  said,  "  and  we  ar 
rived  this  mawning,  but  we  got  this  cyahd  from  the 

129  " 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

brokak  just  befo'  dinnah,  and  so  we  awe  rathah 
late." 

"  Not  at  all ;  it's  only  nine  o'clock,"  said  Mrs.  Leigh- 
ton.  She  looked  up  from  the  card  the  young  lady  had 
given  her,  and  explained,  "  We  haven't  got  in  our  ser 
vants  yet,  and  we  had  to  answer  the  bell  ourselves, 
and—" 

"  You  were  frightened,  of  coase,"  said  the  young 
lady,  caressingly. 

The  gentleman  said  they  ought  not  to  have  come  so 
late,  and  he  offered  some  formal  apologies. 

"  We  should  have  been  just  as  much  scared  any  time 
after  five  o'clock,"  Alma  said  to  the  sympathetic  in 
telligence  in  the  girl's  face. 

She  laughed  out.  "  Of  coase !  Ah  would  have  my 
hawt  in  my  moath  all  day  long,  too,  if  Ah  was  living 
in  a  big  hoase  alone." 

A  moment  of  stiffness  followed ;  Mrs.  Leighton 
would  have  liked  to  withdraw  from  the  intimacy  of 
the  situation,  but  she  did  not  know  how.  It  was  very 
well  for  these  people  to  assume  to  be  what  they  pre 
tended;  but,  she  reflected  too  late,  she  had  no  proof  of 
it  except  the  agent's  permit.  They  were  all  standing 
in  the  hall  together,  and  she  prolonged  the  awkward 
pause  while  she  examined  the  permit.  "  You  are  Mr. 
Woodburn  ?"  she  asked,  in  a  way  that  Alma  felt  im 
plied  he  might  not  be. 

"  Yes,  madam ;  from  Charlottesboag,  Virginia,"  he 
answered,  with  the  slight  umbrage  a  man  shows  when 
the  strange  cashier  turns  his  check  over  and  questions 
him  before  cashing  it. 

Alma  writhed  internally,  but  outwardly  remained 
subordinate;  she  examined  the  other  girl's  dress,  and 
decided  in  a  superficial  consciousness  that  she  had  made 

her  own  bonnet. 

130 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  shall  be  glad  to  show  you  my  rooms,7'  said  Mrs. 
Leightoii,  Avith  an  irrelevant  sigh.  "  You  must  excuse1 
their  being  not  just  as  I  should  wish  them.  We're 
hardly  settled  yet." 

"  Don't  speak  of  it,  madam,"  said  the  gentleman, 
"  if  you  can  overlook  the  trouble  we  awe  giving  you  at 
such  an  unseasonable  houah." 

"  Ah'm  a  hoasekeepah  mahself,"  Miss  Woodburn 
joined  in,  "  and  Ah  know  ho'  to  accyoant  fo'  every 
thing." 

Mrs.  Leighton  led  the  way  up-stairs,  and  the  young 
lady  decided  upon  the  large  front  room  and  small  side 
room  on  the  third  story.  She  said  she  could  take  the 
small  one,  and  the  other  was  so  large  that  her  father 
could  both  sleep  and  work  in  it.  She  seemed  not 
ashamed  to  ask  if  Mrs.  Leighton's  price  was  inflexible, 
but  gave  way  laughing  when  her  father  refused  to  have 
any  bargaining,  with  a  haughty  self-respect  which  he 
softened  to  deference  for  Mrs.  Leighton.  His  impul 
siveness  opened  the  way  for  some  confidence  from  her, 
and  before  the  affair  was  arranged  she  was  enjoying 
in  her  quality  of  clerical  widow  the  balm  of  the 
Virginians'  reverent  sympathy.  They  said  they  were 
church  people  themselves. 

"  Ah  don't  know  what  yo'  mothah  means  by  yo' 
lioase  not  being  in  oddah,"  the  young  lady  said  to 
x\lma  as  they  went  down-stairs  together.  "  Ah'm  a 
great  hoasekeepah  mahself,  and  Ah  mean  what  Ah  say." 

They  had  all  turned  mechanically  into  the  room 
where  the  Leightons  were  sitting  when  the  Wood- 
burns  rang.  Mr.  Woodburn  consented  to  sit  down, 
and  he  remained  listening  to  Mrs.  Leighton  while  his 
daughter  bustled  up  to  the  sketches  pinned  round  the 
room  arid  questioned  Alma  about  them. 

"  Ah  suppose  you  awe  going  to  be  a  great  awtust  ?" 

10  " 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

she  said,  in  friendly  banter,  when  Alma  owned  to 
having  done  the  things.  "  Ah've  a  great  notion  to  take 
a  few  lessons  mahself.  Who's  yo'  teachah?" 

Alma  said  she  was  drawing  in  Mr.  Wetmore's  class, 
and  Miss  Woodburn  said:  "Well,  it's  just  beautiful, 
Miss  Leighton;  it's  grand.  Ah  suppose  it's  raght  ex 
pensive,  now?  Mali  goodness!  we  have  to  cyoant  the 
coast  so  much  nowadays ;  it  seems  to  me  we  do  nothing 
but  cyoant  it.  Ah'd  like  to  bah  something  once  with 
out  askin'  the  price." 

"  Well,  if  you  didn't  ask  it,"  said  Alma,  "  I  don't 
believe  Mr.  Wetmore  would  ever  know  what  the  price 
of  his  lessons  was.  He  has  to  think,  when  you  ask 
him." 

"  Why,  he  most  be  chomming,"  said  Miss  Wood- 
burn.  "  Perhaps  Ah  maght  get  the  lessons  for  noth 
ing  from  him.  Well,  Ah  believe  in  my  soul  Ah'll  trah. 
Now  ho'  did  you  begin  ?  and  ho'  do  you  expect  to  get 
anything  oat  of  it  ?"  She  turned  on  Alma  eyes  brim 
ming  with  a  shrewd  mixture  of  fun  and  earnest,  and 
Alma  made  note  of  the  fact  that  she  had  an  early 
nineteenth-century  face,  round,  arch,  a  little  coquettish, 
but  extremely  sensible  and  unspoiled-looking,  such  as 
used  to  be  painted  a  good  deal  in  miniature  at  that- 
period;  a  tendency  of  her  brown  hair  to  twine  and 
twist  at  the  temples  helped  the  effect ;  a  high  comb 
would  have  completed  it,  Alma  felt,  if  she  had  her 
bonnet  off.  It  was  almost  a  Yankee  country-girl  type ; 
but  perhaps  it  appeared  so  to  Alma  because  it  was,  like 
that,  pure  Anglo-Saxon.  Alma  herself,  with  her  dull, 
dark  skin,  slender  in  figure,  slow  in  speech,  with  aristo 
cratic  forms  in  her  long  hands,  and  the  oval  of  her 
fine  face  pointed  to  a  long  chin,  felt  herself  much  more 
Southern  in  style  than  this  blooming,  bubbling,  bustling 

Virginian. 

132 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  don't  know/'  she  answered,  slowly. 

"  Going  to  take  po'traits,"  suggested  Miss  Wood- 
burn,  "  or  just  paint  the  ahdeal  ?"  A  demure  bur 
lesque  lurked  in  her  tone. 

"  I  suppose  I  don't  expect  to  paint  at  all,"  said  Alma. 
"  I'm  going  to  illustrate  books — if  anybody  will  let  me." 

"  Ah  should  think  they'd  just  joamp  at  you,"  said 
Miss  Woodburn.  "  Ah'll  tell  you  what  let's  do,  Miss 
Leighton:  you  make  some  pictures,  and  Ah'll  wrahte 
a  book  fo'  them.  Ah've  got  to  do  something.  Ah 
maght  as  well  wrahte  a  book.  You  know  we  South 
erners  have  all  had  to  go  to  woak.  But  Ah  don't  mand 
it.  I  tell  papa  I  shouldn't  ca'  fo'  the  disgrace  of  bein' 
poo'  if  it  wasn't  fo'  the  inconvenience." 

"  Yes,  it's  inconvenient,"  said  Alma ;  "  but  you  for 
get  it  when  you're  at  work,  don't  you  think?" 

"  Mah,  yes !  Perhaps  that's  one  reason  why  poo' 
people  have  to  woak  so  hawd — to  keep  their  mands  off 
their  poverty." 

The  girls  both,  tittered,  and  turned  from  talking  in 
a  low  tone  with  their  backs  toward  their  elders,  and 
faced  them. 

"  Well,  Madison,"  said  Mr.  Woodburn,  "  it  is  time 
we  should  go.  I  bid  you  good-night,  madam,"  he  bowed 
to  Mrs.  Leighton.  "  Good-night,"  he  bowed  again  to 
Alma. 

His  daughter  took  leave  of  them  in  formal  phrase, 
but  with  a  jolly  cordiality  of  manner  that  deformalized 
it.  "  We  shall  be  roand  raght  soon  in  the  mawning, 
then,"  she  threatened  at  the  door. 

"  We  shall  be  all  ready  for  you,"  Alma  called  after 
her  down  the  steps. 

"  Well,  Alma  ?"  her  mother  asked,  when  the  door 
closed  upon  them. 

"  She  doesn't  know  any  more  about  arl"  said  Alma, 

133 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  than  —  nothing  at  all.  But  she's  jolly  and  good- 
hearted.  She  praised  everything  that  was  bad  in  my 
sketches,  and  said  she  was  going  to  take  lessons  her 
self.  When  a  person  talks  about  taking  lessons,  as  if 
they  could  learn  it,  you  know  where  they  belong 
artistically." 

Mrs.  Leighton  shook  her  head  with  a  sigh.  "  I  wish 
I  knew  where  they  belonged  financially.  We  shall 
have  to  get  in  two  girls  at  once.  I  shall  have  to  go 
out  the  first  thing  in  the  morning,  and  then  our  troubles 
will  begin." 

"  Well,  didn't  you  want  them  to  begin  ?  I  will  stay 
home  and  help  you  get  ready.  Our  prosperity  couldn't 
begin  without  the  troubles,  if  you  mean  boarders,  and 
boarders  mean  servants.  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  be 
afflicted  with  a  cook  for  a  while  myself." 

"  Yes ;  but  we  don't  know  anything  about  these  peo 
ple,  or  whether  they  will  be  able  to  pay  us.  Did  she 
talk  as  if  they  were  well  off  ?" 

"  She  talked  as  if  they  were  poor ;  poo'  she  called  it." 

"  Yes,  how  queerly  she  pronounced,"  said  Mrs. 
Leighton.  "  Well,  I  ought  to  have  told  them  that  I 
required  the  first  week  in  advance." 

"  Mamma !    If  that's  the  way  you're  going  to  act — " 

"  Oh,  of  course,  I  couldn't,  after  he  wouldn't  let  her 
bargain  for  the  rooms.  I  didn't  like  that." 

"  /  did.  And  you  can  see  that  they  were  perfect 
ladies;  or  at  least  one  of  them."  Alma  laughed  at 
herself,  but  her  mother  did  not  notice. 

"  Their  being  ladies  won't  help  if  they've  got  no 
money.  It  '11  make  it  all  the  worse." 

"  Very  well,  then ;  we  have  no  money,  either.  We're 
a  match  for  them  any  day  there.  We  can  show  them 
that  two  can  play  at  that  game." 


Ill 


ANGUS  BEATON'S  studio  looked  at  first  glance  like 
many  other  painters'  studios.  A  gray  wall  quad- 
rangularly  vaulted  to  a  large  north  light;  casts  of 
feet,  hands,  faces  hung  to  nails  about;  prints,  sketches 
in  oil  and  water-color  stuck  here  and  there  lower  down ; 
a  rickety  table,  with  paint  and  palettes  and  bottles  of 
varnish  and  siccative  tossed  comfortlessly  on  it;  an 
easel,  with  a  strip  of  some  faded  medieval  silk  trail 
ing  from  it ;  a  lay  figure  simpering  in  incomplete  naked 
ness,  with  its  head  on  one  side,  and  a  stocking  on  one 
leg,  and  a  Japanese  dress  dropped  before  it;  dusty 
rugs  and  skins  kicking  over  the  varnished  floor;  can 
vases  faced  to  the  mop-board;  an  open  trunk  overflow 
ing  with  costumes:  these  features  one  might  notice 
anywhere.  But,  besides,  there  was  a  bookcase  with  an 
unusual  number  of  books  in  it,  and  there  was  an  open 
colonial  writing-desk,  claw-footed,  brass-handled,  and 
scutcheoned,  with  foreign  periodicals  —  French  and 
English — littering  its  leaf,  and  some  pages  of  manu 
script  scattered  among  them.  Above  all,  there  was  a 
sculptor's  revolving  stand,  supporting  a  bust  which 
Beaton  was  modelling,  with  an  eye  fixed  as  simul 
taneously  as  possible  on  the  clay  and  on  the  head  of 
the  old  man  who  sat  on  the  platform  beside  it. 

Few  men  have  been  able  to  get  through  the  world 
with  several  gifts  to  advantage  in  all ;  and  most  men 
seem  handicapped  for  the  race  if  they  have  more  than 

135 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

one.  But  they  are  apparently  immensely  interested  as 
well  as  distracted  by  them.  When  Beaton  was  writing, 
he  would  have  agreed,  up  to  a  certain  point,  with  any 
one  who  said  literature  was  his  proper  expression ;  but, 
then,  when  he  was  painting,  up  to  a  certain  point,  he 
would  have  maintained  against  the  world  that  he  was  a 
colorist,  and  supremely  a  colorist.  At  the  certain  point 
in  either  art  he  was  apt  to  break  away  in  a  frenzy  of 
disgust  and  wreak  himself  upon  some  other.  In  these 
moods  he  sometimes  designed  elevations  of  buildings, 
very  striking,  very  original,  very  chic,  very  everything 
but  habitable.  It  was  in  this  way  that  he  had  tried  his 
hand  on  sculpture,  which  he  had  at  first  approached 
rather  slightingly  as  a  mere  decorative  accessory  of 
architecture.  But  it  had  grown  in  his  respect  till  lie 
maintained  that  the  accessory  business  ought  to  be  all 
the  other  way:  that  temples  should  be  raised  to  en 
shrine  statues,  not  statues  made  to  ornament  temples ; 
that  was  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse  with  a  ven 
geance.  This  was  when  he  had  carried  a  plastic  study 
so  far  that  the  sculptors  who  saw  it  said  that  Beaton 
might  have  been  an  architect,  but  would  certainly  never 
be  a  sculptor.  At  the  same  time  he  did  some  hurried, 
nervous  things  that  had  a  popular  charm,  and  that  sold 
in  plaster  reproductions,  to  the  profit  of  another. 
Beaton  justly  despised  the  popular  charm  in  these, 
as  well  as  in  the  paintings  he  sold  from  time  to  time; 
he  said  it  was  flat  burglary  to  have  taken  money  for 
them,  and  he  would  have  been  living  almost  wholly 
upon  the  bounty  of  the  old  tombstone-cutter  in  Syra 
cuse  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  syndicate  letters  which 
he  supplied  to  Fulkerson  for  ten  dollars  a  week. 

They  were  very  well  done,  but  he  hated  doing  them 
after  the  first  two  or  three,  and  had  to  be  punched  up 
for  them  bv  Fulkerson,  who  did  not  cease  to  prize 

136 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

them,  and  who  never  failed  to  punch  him  up.  Beaton 
being  what  lie  was,  Fulkerson  was  his  creditor  as  well 
as  patron;  and  Fulkerson  being  what  he  was,  had  an 
enthusiastic  patience  with  the  elusive,  facile,  adaptable, 
unpractical  nature  of  Beaton.  He  was  very  proud  of 
his  art-letters,  as  he  called  them;  but  then  Fulkerson 
was  proud  of  everything  he  secured  for  his  syndicate. 
The  fact  that  he  had  secured  it  gave  it  value;  he  felt 
as  if  he  had  written  it  himself. 

One  art  trod  upon  another's  heels  with  Beaton.  The 
day  before  he  had  rushed  upon  canvas  the  conception 
of  a  picture  which  he  said  to  himself  was  glorious, 
and  to  others  (at  the  table  d'hote  of  Maroni)  was  not 
bad.  He  had  worked  at  it  in  a  fury  till  the  light  failed 
him,  and  he  execrated  the  dying  day.  But  he  lit  his 
lamp  and  transferred  the  process  of  his  thinking  from 
the  canvas  to  the  opening  of  the  syndicate  letter  which 
he  knew  Fulkerson  would  be  coming  for  in  the  morn 
ing.  He  remained  talking  so  long  after  dinner  in  the 
same  strain  as  he  had  painted  and  written  in  that  he 
could  not  finish  his  letter  that  night.  The  next  morn 
ing,  while  he  was  making  his  tea  for  breakfast,  the 
postman  brought  him  a  letter  from  his  father  enclos 
ing  a  little  check,  and  begging  him  with  tender,  almost 
deferential,  urgence  to  come  as  lightly  upon  him  as 
possible,  for  just  now  his  expenses  were  very  heavy. 
It  brought  tears  of  shame  into  Beaton's  eyes — the  fine, 
smouldering,  floating  eyes  that  many  ladies  admired, 
under  the  thick  bang — and  he  said  to  himself  that  if 
he  were  half  a  man  he  would  go  home  and  go  to  work 
cutting  gravestones  in  his  father's  shop.  But  he  would 
wait,  at  least,  to  finish  his  picture ;  and  as  a  sop  to  his 
conscience,  to  stay  its  immediate  ravening,  he  resolved 
to  finish  that  syndicate  letter  first,  and  borrow  enough 
money  from  Fulkerson  to  be  able  to  send  his  father's 

137 


A    TTAZAKT)    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

check  back;  or,  if  not  that,  then  to  return  the  sum  of 
it  partly  in  Fulkerson's  check.  While  he  still  teemed 
with  both  of  these  good  intentions  the  old  man  from 
whom  he  was  modelling  his  head  of  Judas  came,  and 
Beaton  saw  that  he  must  get  through  with  him  before 
he  finished  either  the  picture  or  the  letter;  he  would 
have  to  pay  him  for  the  time,  anyway.  He  utilized 
the  remorse  with  which  he  was  tingling  to  give  his 
Judas  an  expression  which  he  found  novel  in  the  treat 
ment  of  that  character — a  look  of  such  touching,  ap 
pealing  self-abhorrence  that  Beaton's  artistic  joy  in  it 
amounted  to  rapture;  between  the  breathless  moments 
when  he  wrorked  in  dead  silence  for  an  effect  that  was 
trying  to  escape  him,  he  sang  and  whistled  fragments 
of  comic  opera. 

In  one  of  the  hushes  there  came  a  blow  on  the  out 
side  of  the  door  that  made  Beaton  jump,  and  swear 
with  a  modified  profanity  that  merged  itself  in  apos- 
trophic  prayer.  He  knew  it  must  be  Fulkerson,  and 
after  roaring  "  Come  in !"  he  said  to  the  model,  "  That 
7Il  do  this  morning,  Lindau." 

Fulkerson  squared  his  feet  in  front  of  the  bust  and 
compared  it  by  fleeting  glances  with  the  old  man  as  he 
got  stiffly  up  and  suffered  Beaton  to  help  him  on  with 
his  thin,  shabby  overcoat. 

"  Can  you  come  to-morrow,  Lindau  ?" 

"  No,  not  to-morrow,  Mr.  Peaton.  I  haf  to  zit  for 
the  young  ladties." 

aOh!"  said  Beaton.  "  Wetmore's  class?  Is  Miss 
Leighton  doing  you  ?" 

"  I  don't  know  their  naniess,"  Lindau  began,  when 
Fulkerson  said: 

"  Hope  you  haven't  forgotten  mine,  Mr.  Lindau  ? 
I  met  you  with  Mr.  March  at  Maroni's  one  night." 
Fulkerson  offered  him  a  universally  shakable  hand. 

138 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh  yes !  I  am  gladt  to  zee  you  again,  Mr.  Vulker- 
son.  And  Mr.  Marge  —  lie  don't  zeem  to  gome  any 

019 

more  r 

"  Up  to  his  eyes  in  work.  Been  moving  on  from 
Boston  and  getting  settled,  and  starting  in  on  our 
enterprise.  Beaton  here  hasn't  got  a  very  flattering 
likeness  of  you,  hey  ?  Well,  good-morning,"  he  said, 
for  Lindau  appeared  not  to  have  heard  him  and  was 
escaping  with  a  bow  through  the  door. 

Beaton  lit  a  cigarette  which  he  pinched  nervously 
between  his  lips  before  he  spoke.  "  You've  come  for 
that  letter,  I  suppose,  Fulkerson  ?  It  isn't  done." 

Fulkerson  turned  from  staring  at  the  bust  to  which 
he  had  mounted.  "  What  you  fretting  about  that  letter 
for?  I  don't  want  your  letter." 

Beaton  stopped  biting  his  cigarette  and  looked  at 
him.  "  Don't  want  my  letter  ?  Oh,  very  good !"  he 
bristled  up.  He  took  his  cigarette  from  his  lips,  and 
blew  the  smoke  through  his  nostrils,  and  then  looked 
at  Fulkerson. 

"  ~No ;  I  don't  want  your  letter ;  I  want  you" 
Beaton  disdained  to  ask  an  explanation,  but  he  in 
ternally  lowered  his  crest,  while  he  continued  to  look 
at  Fulkerson  without  changing  his  defiant  countenance. 
This  suited  Fulkerson  well  enough,  and  he  went  on 
with  relish,  "  I'm  going  out  of  the  syndicate  business, 
old  man,  and  I'm  on  a  new  thing."  He  put  his  leg 
over  the  back  of  a  chair  and  rested  his  foot  on  its  seat, 
and,  with  one  hand  in  his  pocket,  he  laid  the  scheme  of 
Every  Other-  Week  before  Beaton  with  the  help  of  the 
other.  The  artist  wrent  about  the  room,  meanwhile, 
with  an  effect  of  indifference  which  by  no  means  of 
fended  Fulkerson.  He  took  some  water  into  his  mouth 
from  a  tumbler,  which  he  blew  in  a  fine  mist  over  the 
head  of  Judas  before  swathing  it  in  a  dirty  cotton 

139 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

cloth;  he  washed  his  brushes  and  set  his  palette;  he 
put  up  on  his  easel  the  picture  he  had  blocked  on  the 
day  before,  and  stared  at  it  with  a  gloomy  face;  then 
he  gathered  the  sheets  of  his  unfinished  letter  together 
and  slid  them  into  a  drawer  of  his  writing-desk.  By 
the  time  he  had  finished  and  turned  again  to  Fulker 
son,  Fulkerson  was  saying :  "  I  did  think  we  could  have 
the  first  number  out  by  New- Year's;  but  it  will  take 
longer  than  that — a  month  longer;  but  I'm  not  sorry, 
for  the  holidays  kill  everything;  and  by  February,  or 
the  middle  of  February,  people  will  get  their  breath 
again  and  begin  to  look  round  and  ask  what's  new. 
Then  we'll  reply  in  the  language  of  Shakespeare  and 
Milton,  (  Every  Other  Week;  and  don't  you  forget  it.' ' 
He  took  down  his  leg  and  asked,  "  Got  a  pipe  of  'baccy 
anywhere  ?" 

Beaton  nodded  at  a  clay  stem  sticking  out  of  a 
Japanese  vase  of  bronze  on  his  mantel.  "  There's 
yours,"  he  said ;  and  Fulkerson  said,  "  Thanks,"  and 
filled  the  pipe  and  sat  down  and  began  to  smoke 
tranquilly. 

Beaton  saw  that  he  would  have  to  speak  now.  "  And 
what  do  you  want  with  me  ?" 

"  You  ?  Oh  yes,"  Fulkerson  humorously  dramatized 
a  return  to  himself  from  a  pensive  absence.  "  Want 
you  for  the  art  department." 

Beaton  shook  his  head.  "  I'm  not  your  man,  Ful 
kerson,"  he  said,  compassionately.  "  You  want  a  more 
practical  hand,  one  that's  in  touch  with  what's  going. 
I'm  getting  further  and  further  away  from  this  century 
and  its  claptrap.  I  don't  believe  in  your  enterprise; 
I  don't  respect  it,  and  I  won't  have  anything  to  do 
with  it.  It  would — choke  me,  that  kind  of  thing." 

"  That's  all  right,"  said  Fulkerson.  He  esteemed 
a  man  who  was  not  going  to  let  himself  go  cheap.  u  Or 

140 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

if  it  isn't,  we  can  make  it.  You  and  March  will  pull 
together  first-rate.  I  don't  care  how  much  ideal  you 
put  into  the  thing;  the  more  the  better.  I  can  look 
after  the  other  end  of  the  schooner  myself." 

"  You  don't  understand  me,"  said  Beaton.  "  I'm 
not  trying  to  get  a  rise  out  of  you.  I'm  in  earnest. 
What  you  want  is  some  man  who  can  have  patience 
with  mediocrity  putting  on  the  style  of  genius,  and 
with  genius  turning  mediocrity  on  his  hands.  I  haven't 
any  luck  with  men ;  I  don't  get  on  with  them ;  I'm  not 
popular."  Beaton  recognized  the  fact  with  the  satis 
faction  which  it  somehow  always  brings  to  human  pride. 

"  So  much  the  better !"  Fulkerson  was  ready  for 
him  at  this  point.  "  I  don't  want  you  to  work  the  old- 
established  racket  —  the  reputations.  When  I  want 
them  I'll  go  to  them  with  a  pocketful  of  rocks — 
knock-down  argument.  But  my  idea  is  to  deal  with 
the  volunteer  material.  Look  at  the  way  the  period 
icals  are  carried  on  now!  Names!  names!  names! 
In  a  country  that's  just  boiling  over  with  literary  and 
artistic  ability  of  every  kind  the  new  fellows  have  no 
chance.  The  editors  all  engage  their  material.  I  don't 
believe  there  are  fifty  volunteer  contributions  printed 
in  a  year  in  all  the  New  York  magazines.  It's  all 
wrong;  it's  suicidal.  Every  Other  Week  is  going  back 
to  the  good  old  anonymous  system,  the  only  fair  sys 
tem.  It's  worked  well  in  literature,  and  it  will  work 
well  in  art." 

"  It  won't  work  well  in  art,"  said  Beaton.  "  There 
you  have  a  totally  different  set  of  conditions.  What 
you'll  get  by  inviting  volunteer  illustrations  will  be 
a  lot  of  amateur  trash.  And  how  are  you  going  to 
submit  your  literature  for  illustration?  It  can't  be 
done.  At  any  rate,  7  won't  undertake  to  do  it." 

"  We'll  get  up  a  School  of  Illustration,"  said  Ful- 
141 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

kerson,  with  cynical  security.  "  You  can  read  the 
things  and  explain  'em,  and  your  pupils  can  make 
their  sketches  under  your  eye.  They  wouldn't  be  much 
further  out  than  most  illustrations  are  if  they  never 
knew  what  they  were  illustrating.  You  might  select 
from  what  comes  in  and  make  up  a  sort  of  pictorial 
variations  to  the  literature  without  any  particular 
reference  to  it.  Well,  I  understand  you  to  accept?" 

"  !XTo,  you  don't." 

'  That  is,  to  consent  to  help  us  with  your  advice 
and  criticism.  That's  all  I  want.  It  won't  commit 
you  to  anything;  and  you  can  be  as  anonymous  as 
anybody."  At  the  door  Fulkerson  added :  "  By-the- 
way,  the  new  man  —  the  fellow  that's  taken  my  old 
syndicate  business — will  want  you  to  keep  on;  but  I 
guess  he's  going  to  try  to  beat  you  down  on  the  price 
of  the  letters.  He's  going  in  for  retrenchment.  I 
brought  along  a  check  for  this  one;  I'm  to  pay  for 
that."  He  offered  Beaton  an  envelope. 

"  I  can't  take  it,  Fulkerson.  The  letter's  paid  for 
already."  Fulkerson  stepped  forward  and  laid  the  en 
velope  on  the  table  among  the  tubes  of  paint. 

"  It  isn't  the  letter  merely.  I  thought  you  wouldn't 
object  to  a  little  advance  on  your  Every  Other  Week 
work  till  you  kind  of  got  started." 

Beaton  remained  inflexible.  "  It  can't  be  done,  Ful 
kerson.  Don't  I  tell  you  I  can't  sell  myself  out  to  a 
thing  I  don't  believe  in?  Can't  you  understand  that?" 

"Oh  yes;  I  can  understand  that  first-rate.  I  don't 
want  to  buy  you ;  I  want  to  borrow  you.  It's  all  right. 
See  ?  Come  round  when  you  can ;  I'd  like  to  introduce 
you  to  old  March.  That's  going  to  be  our  address." 
He  put  a  card  on  the  table  beside  the  envelope,  and 
Beaton  allowed  him  to  go  without  making  him  take  the 
check  back.  He  had  remembered  his  father's  plea ; 

142 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

that  unnerved  him,  and  he  promised  himself  again  to 
return  his  father's  poor  little  check  and  to  work  on 
that  picture  and  give  it  to  Fulkerson  for  the  check 
he  had  left  and  for  his  back  debts.  He  resolved  to  go 
to  work  on  the  picture  at  once;  he  had  set  his  palette 
for  it ;  but  first  he  looked  at  Fulkerson's  check.  It  was 
for  only  fifty  dollars,  and  the  canny  Scotch  blood  in 
Beaton  rebelled;  he  could  not  let  this  picture  go  for 
any  such  money;  he  felt  a  little  like  a  man  whose 
generosity  has  been  trifled  with.  The  conflict  of  emo 
tions  broke  him  up,  and  he  could  not  work. 


IV 


THE  day  wasted  away  in  Beaton's  hands;  at  half- 
past  four  o'clock  he  went  out  to  tea  at  the  house  of 
a  lady  who  was  At  Home  that  afternoon  from  four 
till  seven.  By  this  time  Beaton  was  in  possession  of 
one  of  those  other  selves  of  which  we  each  have  sev 
eral  about  us,  and  was  again  the  laconic,  staccato,  rather 
worldlified  young  artist  whose  moments  of  a  controlled 
utterance  and  a  certain  distinction  of  manner  had  com 
mended  him  to  Mrs.  Horn's  fancy  in  the  summer  at 
St.  Barnaby. 

Mrs.  Horn's  rooms  were  large,  and  they  never  seemed 
very  full,  though  this  perhaps  was  because  people  were 
always  so  quiet.  The  ladies,  who  outnumbered  the 
men  ten  to  one,  as  they  always  do  at  a  New  York  tea, 
were  dressed  in  sympathy  with  the  low  tone  every  one 
spoke  in,  and  with  the  subdued  light  which  gave  a 
crepuscular  uncertainty  to  the  few  objects,  the  dim 
pictures,  the  unexcited  upholstery,  of  the  rooms.  One 
breathed  free  of  bric-a-brac  there,  and  the  new-comer 
breathed  softly  as  one  does  on  going  into  church  after 
service  has  begun.  This  might  be  a  suggestion  from 
the  voiceless  behavior  of  the  man-servant  who  let  you 
in,  but  it  was  also  because  Mrs.  Horn's  At  Home 
was  a  ceremony,  a  decorum,  and  not  festival.  At  far 
greater  houses  there  was  more  gayety,  at  richer  houses 
there  was  more  freedom ;  the  suppression  at  Mrs.  Horn's 
was  a  personal,  not  a  social,  effect;  it  was  an  efflux 

144 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  her  character,  demure,  silentious,  vague,  but  very 
correct. 

Beaton  easily  found  his  way  to  her  around  the 
grouped  skirts  and  among  the  detached  figures,  and 
received  a  pressure  of  welcome  from  the  hand  which 
she  momentarily  relaxed  from  the  tea-pot.  She  sat 
behind  a  table  put  crosswise  of  a  remote  corner,  and 
offered  tea  to  people  whom  a  niece  of  hers  received 
provisionally  or  sped  finally  in  the  outer  room.  They 
did  not  usually  take  tea,  and  when  they  did  they  did 
not  usually  drink  it;  but  Beaton  was  feverishly  glad 
of  his  cup;  he  took  rum  and  lemon  in  it,  and  stood 
talking  at  Mrs.  Horn's  side  till  the  next  arrival  should 
displace  him :  he  talked  in  his  French  manner. 

"  I  have  been  hoping  to  see  you,"  she  said.  "  I 
wanted  to  ask  you  about  the  Leightons.  Did  they 
really  come?" 

"  I  believe  so.  They  are  in  town — yes.  I  haven't 
seen  them." 

"  Then  you  don't  know  how  they're  getting  on — 
that  pretty  creature,  with  her  cleverness,  and  poor 
Mrs.  Leighton  ?  I  was  afraid  they  were  venturing  on 
a  rash  experiment.  Do  you  know  where  they  are  ?" 

"  In  West  Eleventh  Street  somewhere.  Miss  Leigh- 
ton  is  in  Mr.  Wetmore's  class." 

"  I  must  look  them  up.  Do  you  know  their  num 
ber?" 

"  Not  at  the  moment.     I  can  find  out." 

"  Do,"  said  Mrs.  Horn.  "  What  courage  they  must 
have,  to  plunge  into  New  York  as  they've  done!  I 
really  didn't  think  they  would.  I  wonder  if  they've 
succeeded  in  getting  anybody  into  their  house  yet?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Beaton. 

"  I  discouraged  their  coming  all  I  could,"  she  sighed, 
"  and  I  suppose  you  did,  too.  But  it's  quite  useless 

145 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

trying  to  make  people  in  a  place  like  St.  Barnaby  un 
derstand  how  it  is  in  town." 

"  Yes,"  said  Beaton.  He  stirred  his  tea,  while  in 
wardly  he  tried  to  believe  that  he  had  really  dis 
couraged  the  Leightons  from  coming  to  New  York. 
Perhaps  the  vexation  of  his  failure  made  him  call 
Mrs.  Horn  in  his  heart  a  fraud. 

"  Yes,"  she  went  on,  "  it  is  very,  very  hard.  And 
wrhen  they  won't  understand,  and  rush  on  their  doom, 
you  feel  that  they  are  going  to  hold  you  respons — 

Mrs.  Horn's  eyes  wandered  from  Beaton ;  her  voice 
faltered  in  the  faded  interest  of  her  remark,  and  then 
rose  with  renewed  vigor  in  greeting  a  lady  who  came 
up  and  stretched  her  glove  across  the  tea-cups. 

Beaton  got  himself  away  and  out  of  the  house  with 
a  much  briefer  adieu  to  the  niece  than  he  had  meant  to 
make.  The  patronizing  compassion  of  Mrs.  Horn  for 
the  Leightons  filled  him  with  indignation  towrard  her, 
toward  himself.  There  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  have  ignored  them  as  he  had  done ;  but  there  was  a 
feeling.  It  was  his  nature  to  be  careless,  and  he  had 
been  spoiled  into  recklessness;  he  neglected  everybody, 
and  only  remembered  them  when  it  suited  his  whim 
or  his  convenience;  but  he  fiercely  resented  the  inat 
tentions  of  others  toward  himself.  He  had  no  scruple 
about  breaking  an  engagement  or  failing  to  keep  an 
appointment;  he  made  promises  without  thinking  of 
their  fulfilment,  and  not  because  he  was  a  faithless 
person,  but  because  he  was  imaginative,  and  expected 
at  the  time  to  do  what  he  said,  but  was  fickle,  and  so 
did  not.  As  most  of  his  shortcomings  were  of  a  so 
ciety  sort,  no  great  harm  was  done  to  anybody  else. 
He  had  contracted  somewhat  the  circle  of  his  acquaint 
ance  by  what  some  people  called  his  rudeness,  but  most 
people  treated  it  as  his  oddity,  and  were  patient  with 

146 


A    HAZARD    OP    NEW    FORTUNES 

it.  One  lady  said  she  valued  his  coming  when  he  said 
he  would  come  hecause  it  had  the  charm  of  the  unex 
pected.  "  Only  it  shows  that  it  isn't  always  the  un 
expected  that  happens,"  she  explained. 

It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  his  behavior  was  im 
moral;  he  did  not  realize  that  it  was  creating  a  reputa 
tion  if  not  a  character  for  him.  While  we  are  still 
young  we  do  not  realize  that  our  actions  have  this 
effect.  It  seems  to  us  that  people  will  judge  us  from 
what  we  think  and  feel.  Later  we  find  out  that  this 
is  impossible ;  perhaps  we  find  it  out  too  late ;  some  of 
us  never  find  it  out  at  all. 

In  spite  of  his  shame  about  the  Leightons,  Beaton 
had  no  present  intention  of  looking  them  up  or  sending 
Mrs.  Horn  their  address.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  never 
did  send  it ;  but  he  happened  to  meet  Mr.  Wetmore  and 
his  wife  at  the  restaurant  where  he  dined,  and  he  got 
it  of  the  painter  for  himself.  He  did  not  ask  him  how 
Miss  Leighton  was  getting  on;  but  Wetmore  launched 
out,  with  Alma  for  a  tacit  text,  on  the  futility  of  wom 
en  generally  going  in  for  art.  "  Even  when  they  have 
talent  they've  got  too  much  against  them.  Where  a 
girl  doesn't  seem  very  strong,  like  Miss  Leighton,  no 
amount  of  chic  is  going  to  help." 

His  wife  disputed  him  on  behalf  of  her  sex,  as 
women  always  do. 

"  No,  Dolly,"  he  persisted ;  "  she'd  better  be  home 
milking  the  cowrs  and  leading  the  horse  to  water." 

"  Do  you  think  she'd  better  be  up  till  two  in  the 
morning  at  balls  and  going  all  day  to  receptions  and 
luncheons  ?" 

"  Oh,  guess  it  isn't  a  question  of  that,  even  if  she 
weren't  drawing.  You  knew  them  at  home,"  he  said 
to  Beaton. 

"  Yes." 
11  147 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  remember.  Her  mother  said  you  suggested  me. 
Well,  the  girl  has  some  notion  of  it;  there's  no  doubt 
about  that.  But — she's  a  woman.  The  trouble  with 
these  talented  girls  is  that  they're  all  woman.  If  they 
weren't,  there  wouldn't  be  much  chance  for  the  men, 
Beaton.  But  we've  got  Providence  on  our  own  side 
from  the  start.  I'm  able  to  wratch  all  their  inspira 
tions  with  perfect  composure.  I  know  just  how  soon 
it's  going  to  end  in  nervous  breakdown.  Somebody 
ought  to  marry  them  all  and  put  them  out  of  their 
misery." 

"  And  what  will  you  do  with  your  students  who 
are  married  already?"  his  wife  said.  She  felt  that 
she  had  let  him  go  on  long  enough. 

"  Oh,  they  ought  to  get  divorced." 

"  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  take  their  money  if 
that's  what  you  think  of  them." 

"  My  dear,  I  have  a  wrife  to  support." 

Beaton  intervened  with  a  question.  "  Do  you  mean 
that  Miss  Leighton  isn't  standing  it  very  well  ?" 

"  How  do  I  know  ?  She  isn't  the  kind  that  bends ; 
she's  the  kind  that  breaks." 

After  a  little  silence  Mrs.  Wetmore  asked,  "  Won't 
you  come  home  with  us,  Mr.  Beaton?" 

"  Thank  you ;  no.     I  have  an  engagement." 

"  I  don't  see  why  that  should  prevent  you,"  said 
Wetmore.  "  But  you  always  were  a  punctilious  cuss. 
Well !" 

Beaton  lingered  over  his  cigar ;  but  no  one  else  whom 
he  knew  came  in,  and  he  yielded  to  the  threefold  im 
pulse  of  conscience,  of  curiosity,  of  inclination,  in  go 
ing  to  call  at  the  Leightons'.  He  asked  for  the  ladies, 
and  the  maid  showed  him  into  the  parlor,  where  he 
found  Mrs.  Leighton  and  Miss  Woodburn. 

The  widow  met  him  with  a  welcome  neatly  marked 

148 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

by  resentment ;  she  meant  him  to  feel  that  his  not  com 
ing  sooner  had  been  noticed.  Miss  Woodburn  bubbled 
and  gurgled  on,  and  did  what  she  could  to  mitigate  his 
punishment,  but  she  did  not  feel  authorized  to  stay  it, 
till  Mrs.  Leighton,  by  studied  avoidance  of  her  daugh 
ter's  name,  obliged  Beaton  to  ask  for  her.  Then  Miss 
Woodburn  caught  up  her  work,  and  said,  "  Ah'll  go 
and  tell  her,  Mrs.  Leighton."  At  the  top  of  the  stairs 
she  found  Alma,  and  Alma  tried  to  make  it  seem  as  if 
she  had  not  been  standing  there.  "  Mali  goodness, 
eh  aid !  there's  the  handsomest  young  man  asking  for 
you  down  there  you  evah  saw.  Ah  told  you'  moth  ah 
Ah  would  come  up  fo'  you." 

"  What— who  is  it  2" 

"  Don't  you  know  ?  But  ho'  could  you  ?  He's  got 
the  most  beautiful  eyes,  and  he  wea's  his  hai'  in  a 
bang,  and  he  talks  English  like  it  was  something  else, 
and  his  name's  Mr.  Beaton." 

"  Did  he — ask  for  me  ?"  said  Alma,  with  a  dreamy 
tone.  She  put  her  hand  on  the  stairs  rail,  and  a  little 
shiver  ran  over  her. 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you  ?  Of  coase  he  did !  And  you 
ought  to  go  raght  down  if  you  want  to  save  the  poo' 
fellah's  lahfe;  you'  mothah's  just  freezin'  him  to 
death." 


"  SHE  is?"  cried  Alma.  "  Tchk!"  She  flew  down 
stairs,  and  flitted  swiftly  into  the  room,  and  fluttered 
up  to  Beaton,  and  gave  him  a  crushing  hand-shake. 

"  How  very  kind  of  you  to  come  and  see  us,  Mr. 
Beaton!  When  did  you  come  to  New  York?  Don't 
you  find  it  warm  here?  We've  only  just  lighted  the 
furnace,  but  with  this  mild  weather  it  seems  too  early. 
Mamma  does  keep  it  so  hot !"  She  rushed  about  open 
ing  doors  and  shutting  registers,  and  then  came  back 
and  sat  facing  him  from  the  sofa  with  a  mask  of 
radiant  cordiality.  "  How  have  you  been  since  we 
saw  you  ?" 

"  Very  well,"  said  Beaton.  "  I  hope  you're  well, 
Miss  Leighton  ?" 

"  Oh,  perfectly !  I  think  New  York  agrees  with  us 
both  wonderfully.  I  never  knew  such  air.  And  to 
think  of  our  not  having  snow  yet!  I  should  think 
everybody  would  want  to  come  here!  Why  don't  you 
come,  Mr.  Beaton?" 

Beaton  lifted  his  eyes  and  looked  at  her.  "  I — I 
live  in  New  York,"  he  faltered. 

"  In  New  York  City  /"  she  exclaimed 

"  Surely,  Alma,"  said  her  mother,  "  you  remember 
Mr.  Beaton's  telling  us  he  lived  in  New  York." 

"  But  I  thought  you  came  from  Rochester ;  or  was 
it  Syracuse?  I  always  get  those  places  mixed  up." 

"  Probably  I  told  you  my  father  lived  at  Syracuse. 

150 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

I've  been  in  New  York  ever  since  I  came  home  from 
Paris/'  said  Beaton,  with  the  confusion  of  a  man  who 
feels  himself  played  upon  by  a  woman. 

"  From  Paris !"  Alina  echoed,  leaning  forward,  with 
her  smiling  mask  tight  on.  "  Wasn't  it  Munich  where 
you  studied  ?" 

"  I  was  at  Munich,  too.     I  met  Wetmore  there." 

"  Oh,  do  you  know  Mr.  Wetmore  ?" 

"  Why,  Alma,"  her  mother  interposed  again,  "  it 
was  Mr.  Beaton  who  told  you  of  Mr.  Wetmore." 

"  Was  it  ?  Why,  yes,  to  be  sure.  It  was  Mrs.  Horn 
who  suggested  Mr.  Ilcomb.  I  remember  now.  I  can't 
thank  you  enough  for  having  sent  me  to  Mr.  Wetmore, 
Mr.  Beaton.  Isn't  he  delightful  ?  Oh  yes,  I'm  a  per 
fect  Wetmorian,  I  can  assure  you.  The  whole  class 
is  the  same  way." 

"  I  just  met  him  and  Mrs.  Wetmore  at  dinner,"  said 
Beaton,  attempting  the  recovery  of  something  that  he 
had  lost  through  the  girl's  shining  ease  and  steely 
sprightliness.  She  seemed  to  him  so  smooth  and  hard, 
with  a  repellent  elasticity  from  which  he  was  flung  off. 
"  I  hope  you're  not  working  too  hard,  Miss  Leighton  ?" 

"  Oh  no !  I  enjoy  every  minute  of  it,  and  grow 
stronger  on  it.  Do  I  look  very  much  wasted  away?" 
She  looked  him  full  in  the  face,  brilliantly  smiling, 
and  intentionally  beautiful. 

"  N"o,"  he  said,  with  a  slow  sadness ;  "  I  never  saw 
you  looking  better." 

"  Poor  Mr.  Beaton !"  she  said,  in  recognition  of  his 
doleful  tune.  "  It  seems  to  be  quite  a  blow." 

"  Oh  no- 

"  I  remember  all  the  good  advice  you  used  to  give 
me  about  not  working  too  hard,  and  probably  it's  that 
that's  saved  my  life — that  and  the  house-hunting.  Has 
mamma  told  you  of  our  adventures  in  getting  settled? 

151 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Some  time  we  must.  It  was  such  fun!  And  didn't 
you  think  we  were  fortunate  to  get  such  a  pretty  house  ? 
You  must  see  both  our  parlors." 

She  jumped  up,  and  her  mother  followed  her  with 
a  bewildered  look  as  she  ran  into  the  back  parlor  and 
flashed  up  the  gas. 

"  Come  in  here,  Mr.  Beaton.  I  want  to  show  you 
the  great  feature  of  the  house."  She  opened  the  low 
windows  that  gave  upon  a  glazed  veranda  stretching 
across  the  end  of  the  room.  "  Just  think  of  this  in 
iN"ew  York!  You  can't  see  it  very  well  at  night,  but 
when  the  southern  sun  pours  in  here  all  the  after 
noon — " 

"  Yes,  I  can  imagine  it,"  he  said.  He  glanced  up 
at  the  bird-cage  hanging  from  the  roof.  "  I  suppose 
Gypsy  enjoys  it." 

"  You  remember  Gypsy  ?"  she  said ;  and  she  made  a 
cooing,  kissing  little  noise  up  at  the  bird,  who  responded 
drowsily.  "  Poor  old  Gypsum !  Well,  he  shan't  be 
disturbed.  Yes,  it's  Gyp's  delight,  and  Colonel  Wood- 
burn  likes  to  write  here  in  the  morning.  Think  of  us 
having  a  real  live  author  in  the  house!  And  Miss 
Woodburn:  I'm  so  glad  youVe  seen  her!  They're 
Southern  people." 

"  Yes,  that  was  obvious  in  her  case." 

"  From  her  accent  ?  Isn't  it  fascinating  ?  I  didn't 
believe  I  could  ever  endure  Southerners,  but  we're  like 
one  family  with  the  Woodburns.  I  should  think  you'd 
want  to  paint  Miss  Woodburn.  Don't  you  think  her 
coloring  is  delicious  ?  And  such  a  quaint  kind  of  eigh 
teenth  -  century  type  of  beauty !  But  she's  perfectly 
lovely  every  way,  and  everything  she  says  is  so  funny. 
The  Southerners  seem  to  be  such  great  talkers;  better 
than  we  are,  don't  you  think  ?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Beaton,  in  pensive  discourage- 

152 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

merit.  lie  was  sensible  of  being  manipulated,  oper 
ated,  but  he  was  helpless  to  escape  from  the  performer 
or  to  fathom  her  motives.  His  pensiveness  passed  into 
gloom,  and  Avas  degenerating  into  sulky  resentment 
when  he  went  away,  after  several  failures  to  get  back 
to  the  old  ground  he  had  held  in  relation  to  Alma.  He 
retrieved  something  of  it  with  Mrs.  Leighton;  but 
Alma  glittered  upon  him  to  the  last  with  a  keen  im 
penetrable  candor,  a  child  -  like  singleness  of  glance, 
covering  unfathomable  reserve. 

"  Well,  Alma/'  said  her  mother,  when  the  door  had 
closed  upon  him. 

"  Well,  mother."  Then,  after  a  moment,  she  said, 
with  a  rush :  "  Did  you  think  I  was  going  to  let  him 
suppose  we  were  piqued  at  his  not  coming?  Did  you 
suppose  I  was  going  to  let  him  patronize  us,  or  think 
that  we  were  in  the  least  dependent  on  his  favor  or 
friendship  ?" 

Her  mother  did  not  attempt  to  answer  her.  She 
merely  said,  "  I  shouldn't  think  he  would  come  any 
more." 

"  Well,  we  have  got  on  so  far  without  him ;  perhaps 
we  can  live  through  the  rest  of  the  winter." 

"  I  couldn't  help  feeling  sorry  for  him.  He  was 
quite  stupefied.  I  could  see  that  he  didn't  know  what 
to  make  of  you." 

"  He's  not  required  to  make  anything  of  me,"  said 
Alma. 

"  Do  you  think  he  really  believed  you  had  forgotten 
all  those  things  ?" 

"  Impossible  to  say,  mamma." 

"  Well,  I  don't  think  it  was  quite  right,  Alma." 

"  I'll  leave  him  to  you  the  next  time.  Miss  Wood- 
burn  said  you  were  freezing  him  to  death  when  I  came 

down." 

153 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  That  was  quite  different.  But  there  won't  be  any 
next  time,  I'm  afraid/'  sighed  Mrs.  Leighton. 

Beaton  went  home  feeling  sure  there  would  not.  He 
tried  to  read  when  he  got  to  his  room ;  but  Alma's  looks, 
tones,  gestures,  whirred  through  and  through  the  woof 
of  the  story  like  shuttles ;  he  could  not  keep  them  out, 
and  he  fell  asleep  at  last,  not  because  he  forgot  them, 
but  because  he  forgave  them.  He  was  able  to  say  to 
himself  that  he  had  been  justly  cut  off  from  kindness 
which  he  knew  how  to  value  in  losing  it.  He  did  not 
expect  ever  to  right  himself  in  Alma's  esteem,  but  he 
hoped  some  day  to  let  her  know  that  he  had  understood. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if  she 
should  find  it  out  after  his  death.  He  imagined  her 
being  touched  by  it  under  those  circumstances. 


VI 


IN  the  morning  it  seemed  to  Beaton  that  he  had 
done  himself  injustice.  When  he  uncovered  his  Judas 
and  looked  at  it,  he  could  not  helieve  that  the  man 
who  was  capahle  of  such  work  deserved  the  punishment 
Miss  Leighton  had  inflicted  upon  him.  He  still  for 
gave  her,  but  in  the  presence  of  a  thing  like  that  he 
could  not  help  respecting  himself;  he  believed  that  if 
she  could  see  it  she  would  be  sorry  that  she  had  cut 
herself  off  from  his  acquaintance.  He  carried  this 
strain  of  conviction  all  through  his  syndicate  letter, 
which  he  now  took  out  of  his  desk  and  finished,  with 
an  increasing  security  of  his  opinions  and  a  mounting 
severity  in  his  judgments.  He  retaliated  upon  the  gen 
eral  condition  of  art  among  us  the  pangs  of  wounded 
vanity,  which  Alma  had  made  him  feel,  and  he  folded 
up  his  manuscript  and  put  it  in  his  pocket,  almost 
healed  of  his  humiliation.  He  had  been  able  to  escape 
from  its  sting  so  entirely  while  he  was  writing  that  the 
notion  of  making  his  life  more  and  more  literary  com 
mended  itself  to  him.  As  it  was  now  evident  that  the 
future  was  to  be  one  of  renunciation,  of  self-forgetting, 
an  oblivion  tinged  with  bitterness,  he  formlessly  rea 
soned  in  favor  of  reconsidering  his  resolution  against 
Fulkerson's  offer.  One  must  call  it  reasoning,  but  it 
was  rather  that  swift  internal  dramatization  which 
constantly  goes  on  in  persons  of  excitable  sensibilities, 
and  which  now  seemed  to  sweep  Beaton  physically 

155 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

along  toward  the  Every  Other  Week  office,  and  car 
ried  his  mind  with  lightning  celerity  on  to  a  time  when 
he  should  have  given  that  journal  such  quality  and 
authority  in  matters  of  art  as  had  never  been  enjoyed 
by  any  in  America  before.  With  the  prosperity  which 
he  made  attend  his  work  he  changed  the  character  of 
the  enterprise,  and  with  Fulkerson's  enthusiastic  sup 
port  he  gave  the  public  an  art  journal  of  as  high  grade 
as  Les  Lettres  et  les  Arts,,  and  very  much  that  sort  of 
thing.  All  this  involved  now  the  unavailing  regret  of 
Alma  Leighton,  and  now  his  reconciliation  with  her: 
they  were  married  in  Grace  Church,  because  Beaton 
had  once  seen  a  marriage  there,  and  had  intended  to 
paint  a  picture  of  it  some  time. 

Xothing  in  these  fervid  fantasies  prevented  his 
responding  with  due  dryness  to  Fulkerson's  cheery 
"  Hello,  old  man!"  when  he  found  himself  in  the 
building  fitted  up  for  the  Every  Oilier  Week  office. 
Fulkerson's  room  was  back  of  the  smaller  one  occupied 
by  the  bookkeeper;  they  had  been  respectively  the  re 
ception-room  and  dining-room  of  the  little  place  in  its 
dwelling  -  house  days,  and  they  had  been  simply  and 
tastefully  treated  in  their  transformation  into  business 
purposes.  The  narrow  old  trim  of  the  doors  and  win 
dows  had  been  kept,  and  the  quaintly  ugly  marble 
mantels.  The  architect  had  said,  Better  let  them  stay : 
they  expressed  epoch,  if  not  character. 

"  Well,  have  you  come  round  to  go  to  work  ?  Just 
hang  up  your  coat  on  the  floor  anywhere,"  Fulkerson 
went  on. 

"  I've  come  to  bring  you  that  letter,"  said  Beaton, 
all  the  more  haughtily  because  he  found  that  Fulker- 
son  was  not  alone  when  he  welcomed  him  in  these  free 
and  easy  terms.  There  was  a  quiet-looking  man,  rather 
stout,  and  a  little  above  the  middle  height,  with  a  full, 

156 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

close-cropped  iron-gray  beard,  seated  beyond  the  table 
where  Fulkcrson  tilted  himself  back,  with,  his  knees  set 
against  it;  and  leaning  against  the  mantel  there  was  a 
young  man  with  a  singularly  gentle  face,  in  which  lh<; 
look  of  goodness  qualified  and  transfigured  a  certain 
simplicity.  His  large  blue  eyes  were  somewhat  prom 
inent;  and  his  rather  narrow  face  was  drawn  forward 
in  a  nose  a  little  too  long  perhaps,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  full  chin  deeply  cut  below  the  lip,  and  jutting 
firmly  forward. 

"  Introduce  you  to  Mr.  March,  our  editor,  Mr. 
Beaton,"  Fulkerson  said,  rolling  his  head  in  the  di 
rection  of  the  elder  man;  and  then  nodding  it  toward 
the  younger,  he  said,  "  Mr.  Dryfoos,  Mr.  Beaton." 
Beaton  shook  hands  with  March,  and  then  with  Mr. 
Dryfoos,  and  Fulkerson  went  on,  gayly :  "  We  were 
just  talking  of  you,  Beaton — well,  you  know  the  old 
saying.  Mr.  March,  as  I  told  you,  is  our  editor,  and 
Mr.  Dryfoos  has  charge  of  the  publishing  department 
— he's  the  counting  -  room  incarnate,  the  source  of 
power,  the  fountain  of  corruption,  the  element  that 
prevents  journalism  being  the  high  and  holy  thing 
that  it  would  be  if  there  were  no  money  in  it."  Mr. 
Dryfoos  turned  his  large,  mild  eyes  upon  Beaton,  and 
laughed  with  the  uneasy  concession  which  people  make 
to  a  character  when  they  do  not  quite  approve  of  the 
character's  language.  "  What  Mr.  March  and  I  are 
trying  to  do  is  to  carry  on  this  thing  so  that  there 
won't  be  any  money  in  it — or  very  little;  and  we're 
planning  to  give  the  public  a  better  article  for  the 
price  than  it's  ever  had  before.  Now  here's  a  dummy 
we've  had  made  up  for  Every  Other  Week,  and  as  we've 
decided  to  adopt  it,  we  would  naturally  like  your  opin 
ion  of  it,  so's  to  know  what  opinion  to  have  of  you" 
He  reached  forward  and  pushed  toward  Beaton  a  vol- 

157 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

nine  a  little  above  the  size  of  the  ordinary  duodecimo 
book;  its  ivory-white  pebbled  paper  cover  was  prettily 
illustrated  with  a  water  -  colored  design  irregularly 
washed  over  the  greater  part  of  its  surface:  quite 
across  the  page  at  top,  and  narrowing  from  right  to 
left  as  it  descended.  In  the  triangular  space  left  blank 
the  title  of  the  periodical  and  the  publisher's  imprint 
were  tastefully  lettered  so  as  to  be  partly  covered  by 
the  background  of  color. 

"  It's  like  some  of  those  Tariarin  books  of  Daudet's," 
said  Beaton,  looking  at  it  with  more  interest  than  he 
suffered  to  be  seen.  "  But  it's  a  book,  not  a  magazine." 
He  opened  its  pages  of  thick,  mellow  white  paper,  with 
uncut  leaves,  the  first  few  pages  experimentally  printed 
in  the  type  intended  to  be  used,  and  illustrated  with 
some  sketches  drawn  into  and  over  the  text,  for  the  sake 
of  the  effect. 

"  A  Daniel — a  Daniel  come  to  judgment !  Sit  down, 
Dan'el,  and  take  it  easy."  Fulkerson  pushed  a  chair 
toward  Beaton,  wrho  dropped  into  it.  "  You're  right, 
Dan'el;  it's  a  book,  to  all  practical  intents  and  pur 
poses.  And  what  we  propose  to  do  with  the  American 
public  is  to  give  it  twenty-four  books  like  this  a  year 
— a  complete  library — for  the  absurd  sum  of  six  dol 
lars.  We  don't  intend  to  sell  'em — it's  no  name  for 
the  transaction — but  to  give  'em.  And  what  we  want 
to  get  out  of  you — beg,  borrow,  buy,  or  steal  from  you 
—is  an  opinion  whether  we  shall  make  the  American 
public  this  princely  present  in  paper  covers  like  this, 
or  in  some  sort  of  flexible  boards,  so  they  can  set  them 
on  the  shelf  and  say  no  more  about  it,  2s"ow,  Dan'el, 
come  to  judgment,  as  our  respected  friend  Shy  lock  re 
marked." 

Beaton  had  got  done  looking  at  the  dummy,  and  he 
dropped  it  on  the  table  before  Fulkerson,  who  pushed 

158 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

it  away,  apparently  to  free  himself  from  partiality. 
"  I  don't  know  anything  about  the  business  side,  and 
I  can't  tell  about  the  effect  of  either  style  on  the  sales; 
but  you'll  spoil  the  whole  character  of  the  cover  if  you 
use  anything  thicker  than  that  thickish  paper." 

"  All  right ;  very  good ;  first-rate.  The  ayes  have 
it.  Paper  it  is.  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  we  had 
decided  for  that  paper  before  you  came  in.  Mr.  March 
wanted  it,  because  he  felt  in  his  bones  just  the  way 
you  do  about  it,  and  Mr.  Dryfoos  wanted  it,  because 
he's  the  counting-room  incarnate,  and  it's  cheaper;  and 
I  wanted  it,  because  I  always  like  to  go  with  the  ma 
jority.  Now  what  do  you  think  of  that  little  design 
itself?" 

"  The  sketch  ?"  Beaton  pulled  the  book  toward  him 
again  and  looked  at  it  again.  "  Rather  decorative. 
Drawing's  not  remarkable.  Graceful;  rather  nice." 
He  pushed  the  book  awray  again,  and  Fulkerson  pulled 
it  to  his  side  of  the  table. 

"  Well,  that's  a  piece  of  that  amateur  trash  you  de 
spise  so  much.  I  went  to  a  painter  I  know — by-the- 
way,  he  was  guilty  of  suggesting  you  for  this  thing, 
but  I  told  him  I  was  ahead  of  him — and  I  got  him 
to  submit  my  idea  to  one  of  his  class,  and  that's  the 
result.  Well,  now,  there  ain't  anything  in  this  world 
that  sells  a  book  like  a  pretty  cover,  and  we're  going 
to  have  a  pretty  cover  for  Every  Other  Week  every 
time.  We've  cut  loose  from  the  old  traditional  quarto 
literary  newspaper  size,  and  we've  cut  loose  from  the 
old  two-column  big  page  magazine  size ;  we're  going  to 
have  a  duodecimo  page,  clear  black  print,  and  paper 
that  '11  make  your  mouth  water ;  and  we're  going  to 
have  a  fresh  illustration  for  the  cover  of  each  number, 
and  we  ain't  a-going  to  give  the  public  any  rest  at  all. 
Sometimes  we're  going  to  have  a  delicate  little  land- 

159 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

scape  like  this,  and  sometimes  we're  going  to  have  an 
indelicate  little  figure,  or  as  much  so  as  the  law  will 
allow." 

The  young  man  leaning  against  the  mantelpiece 
blushed  a  sort  of  protest. 

March  smiled  and  said,  dryly,  "  Those  are  the  num 
bers  that  Mr.  Fulkerson  is  going  to  edit  himself." 

"  Exactly.  And  Mr.  Beaton,  here,  is  going  to  sup 
ply  the  floating  females,  gracefully  airing  themselves 
against  a  sunset  or  something  of  that  kind."  Beaton 
frowned  in  embarrassment,  while  Fulkerson  went  on, 
philosophically :  "  It's  astonishing  how  you  fellows  can 
keep  it  up  at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings;  you  can 
paint  things  that  your  harshest  critic  would  be  ashamed 
to  describe  accurately;  you're  as  free  as  the  theatre. 
But  that's  neither  here  nor  there.  What  I'm  after  is 
the  fact  that  we're  going  to  have  variety  in  our  title- 
pages,  and  we  are  going  to  have  novelty  in  the  illus 
trations  of  the  body  of  the  book.  March,  here,  if  he 
had  his  own  way,  wouldn't  have  any  illustrations 
at  all." 

"Not  because  I  don't  like  them,  Mr.  Beaton," 
March  interposed,  "  but  because  I  like  them  too  much. 
I  find  that  I  look  at  the  pictures  in  an  illustrated 
article,  but  I  don't  read  the  article  very  much,  and  I 
fancy  that's  the  case  with  most  other  people.  You've 
got  to  doing  them  so  prettily  that  you  take  our  eyes 
off  the  literature,  if  you  don't  take  our  minds  off." 

"  Like  the  society  beauties  on  the  stage :  people  go 
in  for  the  beauty  so  much  that  they  don't  know 
Avhat  the  play  is.  But  the  box-office  gets  there  all  the 
same,  and  that's  what  Mr.  Dryfoos  wants."  "Fulkerson 
looked  up  gayly  at  Mr.  Dryfoos,  who  smiled  de'pre- 
catingly. 

"  It  was  different,"  March*  went  on,  "  when  the  illus- 

]00 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

trations   used    to   be   bad.      Then    the    text   had   some 
chance.'7 

"  Old  legitimate  drama  days,  when  ugliness  and 
genius  combined  to  storm  the  galleries/'  said  Ful- 
kerson. 

''  We  can  still  make  them  bad  enough,"  said  Beaton, 
ignoring  Fulkerson  in  his  remark  to  March. 

Fulkerson  took  the  reply  upon  himself.  "  Well,  you 
needn't  make  'em  so  bad  as  the  old-style  cuts ;  but  you 
can  make  them  unobtrusive,  modestly  retiring.  We've 
got  hold  of  a  process  something  like  that  those  French 
fellows  gave  Daudet  thirty  -  five  thousand  dollars  to 
write  a  novel  to  use  with;  kind  of  thing  that  begins 
at  one  side,  or  one  corner,  and  spreads  in  a  sort  of 
dim  religious  style  over  the  print  till  you  can't  tell 
which  is  which.  Then  woVe  got  a  notion  that  where 
the  pictures  don't  behave  quite  so  sociably,  they  can 
be  dropped  into  the  text,  like  a  little  casual  remark, 
don't  you  know,  or  a  comment  that  has  some  connec-' 
tion,  or  maybe  none  at  all,  with  what's  going  on  in 
the  story.  Something  like  this."  Fulkerson  took  away 
one  knee  from  the  table  long  enough  to  open  the  drawer, 
and  pull  from  it  a  book  that  he  shoved  toward  Beaton. 
"  That's  a  Spanish  book  I  happened  to  see  at  Bren- 
tano's,  and  I  froze  to  it  on  account  of  the  pictures.  I 
guess  they're  pretty  good." 

"  Do  you  expect  to  get  such  drawings  in  this  coun 
try  ?"  asked  Beaton,  after  a  glance  at  the  book.  "  Such 
character — such  drama  ?  You  won't." 

"  Well,  I'm  not  so  sure,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  come  to 
get  our  amateurs  warmed  up  to  the  work.  But  what 
I  want  is  to  get  the  physical  effect,  so  to  speak — get 
that  sized  picture  into  our  page,  and  set  the  fashion  of 
it.  I  shouldn't  care  if  the  illustration  was  sometimes 
confined  to  an  initial  letter  and  a  tail-piece." 

161 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Couldn't  be  done  here.  We  haven't  the  touch. 
We're  good  in  some  things,  hut  this  isn't  in  our  way," 
said  Beaton,  stubbornly.  "  I  can't  think  of  a  man  who 
could  do  it ;  that  is,  among  those  that  would." 

"  Well,  think  of  some  woman,  then,"  said  Fulker- 
son,  easily.  "  I've  got  a  notion  that  the  women  could 
help  us  out  on  this  thing,  come  to  get  'em  interested. 
There  ain't  anything  so  popular  as  female  fiction ;  why 
not  try  female  art  ?" 

"  The  females  themselves  have  been  supposed  to  have 
been  trying  it  for  a  good  while,"  March  suggested ;  and 
Mr.  Dryfoos  laughed  nervously;  Beaton  remained  sol 
emnly  silent. 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  Fulkerson  assented.  "  But  I  don't 
mean  that  kind  exactly.  What  we  want  to  do  is  to 
work  the  eiuig  Weibliche  in  this  concern.  We  wrant  to 
make  a  magazine  that  will  go  for  the  women's  fancy 
every  time.  I  don't  mean  with  recipes  for  cooking 
and  fashions  and  personal  gossip  about  authors  and 
society,  but  real  high  -  tone  literature  that  will  show 
women  triumphing  in  all  the  stories,  or  else  suffering 
tremendously.  We've  got  to  recognize  that  women 
form  three-fourths  of  the  reading  public  in  this  coun 
try,  and  go  for  their  tastes  and  their  sensibilities  and 
their  sex-piety  along  the  wrhole  line.  They  do  like  to 
think  that  women  can  do  things  better  than  men;  and 
if  we  can  let  it  leak  out  and  get  around  in  the  papers 
that  the  managers  of  Every  Other  Week  couldn't  stir 
a  peg  in  the  line  of  the  illustrations  they  wanted  till 
they  got  a  lot  of  God-gifted  girls  to  help  them,  it  '11 
make  the  fortune  of  the  thing.  See  ?" 

He  looked  sunnily  round  at  the  other  men,  and 
March  said :  "  You  ought  to  be  in  charge  of  a  Siamese 
white  elephant,  Fulkerson.  It's  a  disgrace  to  be  con 
nected  with  you." 

162 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  Beaton,  "  that  you'd  better 
get  a  God-gifted  girl  for  your  art  editor." 

F\ilkerson  leaned  alertly  forward,  and  touched  him 
on  the  shoulder,  with  a  compassionate  smile.  "  My 
dear  boy,  they  haven't  got  the  genius  of  organization. 
It  takes  a  very  masculine  man  for  that — a  man  who 
combines  the  most  subtle  and  refined  sympathies  with 
the  most  forceful  purposes  and  the  most  ferruginous 
will-power.  Which  his  name  is  Angus  Beaton,  and 
here  he  sets !" 

The  others  laughed  with  Fulkerson  at  his  gross  bur 
lesque  of  flattery,  and  Beaton  frowned  sheepishly.  "  I 
suppose  you  understand  this  man's  style,"  he  growled 
toward  March. 

"  He  does,  my  son,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  He  knows 
that  I  cannot  tell  a  lie."  He  pulled  out  his  watch, 
and  then  got  suddenly  upon  his  feet. 

"  It's  quarter  of  twelve,  and  I've  got  an  appoint 
ment."  Beaton  rose  too,  and  Fulkerson  put  the  two 
books  in  his  lax  hands.  "  Take  these  along,  Michel 
angelo  Da  \7inci,  my  friend,  and  put  your  multitudi 
nous  mind  on  them  for  about  an  hour,  and  let  us  hear 
from  you  to-morrow.  We  hang  upon  your  decision." 

"  There's  no  deciding  to  be  done,"  said  Beaton. 
"  You  can't  combine  the  two  styles.  They'd  kill  each 
other." 

"A  Dan'el,  a  Dan'el  come  to  judgment!  I  knew 
you  could  help  us  out!  Take  ?em  along,  and  tell  us 
which  will  go  the  furthest  with  the  ewlg  Weibliche. 
Dryfoos,  I  want  a  word  with  you."  He  led  the  way 
into  the  front  room,  flirting  an  airy  farewell  to  Beaton 

with  his  hand  as  he  went. 
12 


VII 


MAECH  and  Beaton  remained  alone  together  for  a 
moment,  and  March  said :  "  I  hope  you  will  think  it 
worth  while  to  take  hold  with  us,  Mr.  Beaton.  Mr. 
Fulkerson  puts  it  in  his  own  way,  of  course ;  but  we 
really  want  to  make  a  nice  thing  of  the  magazine. " 
He  had  that  timidity  of  the  elder  in  the  presence  of 
the  younger  man  which  the  younger,  preoccupied  with 
his  own  timidity  in  the  presence  of  the  elder,  cannot 
imagine.  Besides,  March  was  aware  of  the  gulf  that 
divided  him  as  a  literary  man  from  Beaton  as  an 
artist,  and  he  only  ventured  to  feel  his  way  toward 
sympathy  with  him.  "  We  want  to  make  it  good ;  we 
want  to  make  it  high.  Fulkerson  is  right  about  aim 
ing  to  please  the  women,  but  of  course  he  caricatures 
the  way  of  going  about  it.'7 

For  answer,  Beaton  flung  out,  "  I  can't  go  in  for  a 
thing  I  don't  understand  the  plan  of." 

March  took  it  for  granted  that  he  had  wounded  some 
exposed  sensibility  of  Beaton's.  He  continued  still 
more  deferentially :  "  Mr.  Fulkerson's  notion — I  must 
say  the  notion  is  his,  evolved  from  his  syndicate  experi 
ence — is  that  we  shall  do  best  in  fiction  to  confine  our 
selves  to  short  stories,  and  make  each  number  complete 
in  itself.  He  found  that  the  most  successful  things 
he  could  furnish  his  newspapers  were  short  stories; 
we  Americans  are  supposed  to  excel  in  writing  them; 
and  most  people  begin  with  them  in  fiction;  and  it's 

164 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Mr.  Fulkerson's  idea  to  work  unknown  talent,  as  lie 
says,  and  so  he  thinks  he  can  not  only  get  them  easily, 
but  can  gradually  form  a  school  of  short-story  writers. 
I  can't  say  I  follow  him  altogether,  but  I  respect  his 
experience.  We  shall  not  despise  translations  of  short 
stories,  but  otherwise  the  matter  will  all  be  original, 
and,  of  course,  it  won't  all  be  short  stories.  We  shall 
use  sketches  of  travel,  and  essays,  and  little  dramatic 
studies,  and  bits  of  biography  and  history ;  but  all  very 
light,  and  always  short  enough  to  be  completed  in  a 
single  number.  Mr.  Fulkerson  believes  in  pictures, 
and  most  of  the  things  would  be  capable  of  illus 
tration." 

"  I  see,"  said  Beaton. 

"  I  don't  know  but  this  is  the  whole  affair,"  said 
March,  beginning  to  stiffen  a  little  at  the  young  man's 
reticence. 

"  I  understand.  Thank  you  for  taking  the  trouble 
to  explain.  Good-morning."  Beaton  bowed  himself 
off,  without  offering  to  shake  hands. 

Fulkerson  came  in  after  a  while  from  the  outer  of 
fice,  and  Mr.  Dryfoos  followed  him.  "  Well,  what  do 
you  think  of  our  art  editor  ?" 

"  Is  he  our  art  editor  2"  asked  March.  "  I  wasn't 
quite  certain  when  he  left." 

"  Did  he  take  the  books ?" 

"  Yes,  he  took  the  books." 

"  I  guess  he's  all  right,  then."  Fulkerson  added, 
in  concession  to  the  umbrage  he  detected  in  March: 
"  Beaton  has  his  times  of  being  the  greatest  ass  in  the 
solar  system,  but  he  usually  takes  it  out  in  personal 
conduct.  When  it  comes  to  work,  he's  a  regular  horse." 

"  He  appears  to  have  compromised  for  the  present 
by  being  a  perfect  mule,"  said  March. 

"Well,  he's  in  a  transition  state,"  Fulkerson  al- 
165 


A    HAZAED    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

lowed.  "  He's  the  man  for  us.  He  really  understands 
what  we  want.  You'll  see ;  he'll  catch  on.  That  lurid 
glare  of  his  will  wear  off  in  the  course  of  time.  He's 
really  a  good  fellow  when  you  take  him  off  his  guard ; 
and  he's  full  of  ideas.  He's  spread  out  over  a  good 
deal  of  ground  at  present,  and  so  he's  pretty  thin ;  but 
come  to  gather  him  up  into  a  lump,  there's  a  good  deal 
of  substance  to  him.  Yes,  there  is.  He's  a  first-rate 
critic,  and  he's  a  nice  fellow  with  the  other  artists. 
They  laugh  at  his  universality,  but  they  all  like  him. 
He's  the  best  kind  of  a  teacher  when  he  condescends 
to  it;  and  he's  just  the  man  to  deal  with  our  volunteer 
work.  Yes,  sir,  he's  a  prize.  Well,  I  must  go  now." 

Fulkerson  went  out  of  the  street  door,  and  then  came 
quickly  back.  "  By-the-bye,  March,  I  saw  that  old  dyna 
miter  of  yours  round  at  Beaton's  room  yesterday." 

"  What  old  dynamiter  of  mine  ?" 

"  That  old  one-handed  Dutchman  —  friend  of  your 
youth — the  one  we  saw  at  Maroni's — 

"  Oh — Lindau !"  said  March,  with  a  vague  pang  of 
self  -  reproach  for  having  thought  of  Lindau  so  little 
after  the  first  flood  of  his  tender  feeling  toward  him 
was  past. 

"  Yes,  our  versatile  friend  was  modelling  him  as 
Judas  Iscariot.  Lindau  makes  a  first-rate  Judas,  and 
Beaton  has  got  a  big  thing  in  that  head  if  he  works 
the  religious  people  right.  But  what  I  wras  thinking 
of  was  this — it  struck  me  just  as  I  was  going  out  of 
the  door :  Didn't  you  tell  me  Lindau  knew  forty  or  fifty 
different  languages  ?" 

"  Four  or  five,  yes." 

"  Well,  we  won't  quarrel  about  the  number.  The 
question  is,  Why  not  work  him  in  the  field  of  foreign 
literature?  You  can't  go  over  all  their  reviews  and 
magazines,  and  he  could  do  the  smelling  for  you,  if 

1G6 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

you  could  trust  his  nose.  Would  lie  know  a  good 
thing?" 

"  I  think  he  would,"  said  March,  on  whom  the  scope 
of  Fulkerson's  suggestion  gradually  opened.  "  He  used 
to  have  good  taste,  and  he  must  know  the  ground.  Why, 
it's  a  capital  idea,  Fulkerson !  Lindau  wrote  very  fair 
English,  and  he  could  translate,  with  a  little  revision." 

"  And  he  would  probably  work  cheap.  Well,  hadn't 
you  better  see  him  about  it?  I  guess  it  '11  be  quite  a 
windfall  for  him." 

"  Yes,  it  will.  I'll  look  him  up.  Thank  you  for 
the  suggestion,  Fulkerson." 

"Oh,  don't  mention  it!  I  don't  mind  doing  Every 
Other  Week  a  good  turn  now  and  then  when  it  conies 
in  my  way."  Fulkerson  went  out  again,  and  this  time 
March  was  finally  left  with  Mr.  Dryfoos. 

"  Mrs.  March  was  very  sorry  not  to  be  at  home  when 
your  sisters  called  the  other  day.  She  wished  me  to 
ask  if  they  had  any  afternoon  in  particular.  There 
was  none  on  your  mother's  card." 

"  No,  sir,"  said  the  young  man,  with  a  flush  of  em 
barrassment  that  seemed  habitual  with  him.  "  She 
has  no  day.  She's  at  home  almost  every  day.  She 
hardly  ever  goes  out." 

"  Might  we  come  some  evening  ?"  March  asked.  ''  We 
should  be  very  glad  to  do  that,  if  she  would  excuse  the 
informality.  Then  I  could  come  with  Mrs.  March." 

"  Mother  isn't  very  formal,"  said  the  young  man. 
"  She  would  be  very  glad  to  see  you." 

"  Then  we'll  come  some  night  this  week,  if  you  will 
let  us.  When  do  you  expect  your  father  back  ?" 

"  Not  much  before  Christmas.  He's  trying  to  settle 
up  some  things  at  Moffitt." 

"  And  what  do  you  think  of  our  art  editor  ?"  asked 

March,  with  a  smile,  for  the  change  of  subject. 

1G7 


A    HAZAED    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  much  about  such  things,"  said 
the  young  man,  with  another  of  his  embarrassed  flushes. 
"  Mr.  Fulkerson  seems  to  feel  sure  that  he  is  the  one 
for  us." 

"  Mr.  Fulkerson  seemed  to  think  that  /  was  the  one 
for  you,  too,"  said  March ;  and  he  laughed.  "  That's 
what  makes  me  doubt  his  infallibility.  But  he  couldn't 
do  worse  with  Mr.  Beaton." 

Mr.  Dryfoos  reddened  and  looked  down,  as  if  unable 
or  unwilling  to  cope  with  the  difficulty  of  making  a 
polite  protest  against  March's  self-depreciation.  He 
said,  after  a  moment :  "  It's  new  business  to  all  of  us 
except  Mr.  Fulkerson.  But  I  think  it  will  succeed.  I 
think  we  can  do  some  good  in  it." 

March  asked  rather  absently,  "  Some  good  ?"  Then 
he  added :  "  Oh  yes ;  I  think  we  can.  What  do  you 
mean  by  good  ?  Improve  the  public  taste  ?  Elevate 
the  standard  of  literature  ?  Give  young  authors  and 
artists  a  chance?" 

This  was  the  only  good  that  had  ever  been  in  March's 
mind,  except  the  good  that  was  to  come  in  a  material 
way  from  his  success,  to  himself  and  to  his  family. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  young  man ;  and  he  looked 
down  in  a  shamefaced  fashion.  He  lifted  his  head 
and  looked  into  March's  face.  "  I  suppose  I  was  think 
ing  that  some  time  we  might  help  along.  If  we  were 
to  have  those  sketches  of  yours  about  life  in  every  part 
of  New  York- 
March's  authorial  vanity  was  tickled.  "  Fulkerson 
has  been  talking  to  you  about  them?  He  seemed  to 
think  they  would  be  a  card.  He  believes  that  there's 
no  subject  so  fascinating  to  the  general  average  of  peo 
ple  throughout  the  country  as  life  in  New  York  City; 
and  he  liked  my  notion  of  doing  these  things."  March 
hoped  that  Dryfoos  would  answer  that  Fulkerson  was 

168 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

perfectly  enthusiastic  about  his  notion ;  but  lie  did  not 
need  this  stimulus,  and,  at  any  rate,  he  went  on  without 
it.  "  The  fact  is,  it's  something  that  struck  my  fancy 
the  moment  I  came  here;  I  found  myself  intensely 
interested  in  the  place,  and  I  began  to  make  notes,  con 
sciously  and  unconsciously,  at  once.  Yes,  I  believe  I 
can  get  something  quite  attractive  out  of  it.  I  don't  in- 
the  least  know  what  it  will  be  yet,  except  that  it  will 
be  very  desultory ;  and  I  couldn't  at  all  say  Avhen  I  can 
get  at  it.  If  we  postpone  the  first  number  till  February 
I  might  get  a  little  paper  into  that.  Yes,  I  think  it 
might  be  a  good  thing  for  us,"  March  said,  with  mod 
est  self-appreciation. 

"  If  you  can  make  the  comfortable  people  under 
stand  how  the  uncomfortable  people  live,  it  will  be 
a  very  good  thing,  Mr.  March.  Sometimes  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  only  trouble  is  that  we  don't  know  one 
another  well  enough;  and  that  the  first  thing  is  to  do 
this."  The  young  fellow  spoke  with  the  seriousness  in 
which  the  beauty  of  his  face  resided.  Whenever  he 
laughed  his  face  looked  weak,  even  silly.  It  seemed 
to  be  a  sense  of  this  that  made  him  hang  his  head  or 
turn  it  away  at  such  times. 

"  That's  true,"  said  March,  from  the  surface  only. 
"  And  then,  those  phases  of  low  life  are  immensely 
picturesque.  Of  course,  we  must  try  to  get  the  con 
trasts  of  luxury  for  the  sake  of  the  full  effect.  That 
won't  be  so  easy.  You  can't  penetrate  to  the  dinner 
party  of  a  millionaire  under  the  wing  of  a  detective 
as  you  could  to  a  carouse  in  Mulberry  Street,  or  to 
his  children's  nursery  with  a  philanthropist  as  you  can 
to  a  street-boy's  lodging-house."  March  laughed,  and 
again  the  young  man  turned  his  head  away.  "  Still, 
something  can  be  done  in  that  way  by  tact  and  pa 
tience." 

169 


VIII 

THAT  evening  March  went  with  his  wife  to  return 
the  call  of  the  Dryfoos  ladies.  On  their  way  up-town 
in  the  Elevated  he  told  her  of  his  talk  with  young 
Dryfoos.  "  I  confess  I  was  a  little  ashamed  before 
him  afterward  for  having  looked  at  the  matter  so  en 
tirely  from  the  esthetic  point  of  view.  But  of  course, 
you  know,  if  I  went  to  work  at  those  things  with  an 
ethical  intention  explicitly  in  mind,  I  should  spoil 
them." 

"  Of  course,"  said  his  wife.  She  had  always  heard 
him  say  something  of  this  kind  ahout  such  things. 

He  went  on :  "  But  I  suppose  that's  just  the  point 
that  such  a  nature  as  young  Dryfoos's  can't  get  hold 
of,  or  keep  hold  of.  We're  a  queer  lot,  down  there, 
Isabel — perfect  menagerie.  If  it  hadn't  been  that  Ful- 
kerson  got  us  together,  and  really  seems  to  know  what 
he  did  it  for,  I  should  say  he  was  the  oddest  stick 
among  us.  But  when  I  think  of  myself  and  my  own 
crankiness  for  the  literary  department ;  and  young  Dry 
foos,  who  ought  really  to  be  in  the  pulpit,  or  a  mon 
astery,  or  something,  for  publisher;  and  that  young 
Beaton,  who  probably  hasn't  a  moral  fibre  in  his  com 
position,  for  the  art  man,  I  don't  know  but  we  could 
give  Fulkerson  odds  and  still  beat  him  in  oddity." 

His  wife  heaved  a  deep  sigh  of  apprehension,  of 
renunciation,  of  monition.  "  Well,  Fm  glad  you  can 
feel  so  light  about  it,  Basil." 

170 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Light  ?  I  feel  gay !  With  Fulkerson  at  the  helm, 
I  tell  you  the  rocks  and  the  lee  shore  had  better  keep 
out  of  the  way."  He  laughed  with  pleasure  in  his 
metaphor.  "  Just  when  you  think  Fulkerson  has  taken 
leave  of  his  senses  he  says  or  does  something  that  shows 
he  is  on  the  most  intimate  and  inalienable  terms  with 
them  all  the  time.  You  know  how  I've  been  worrying 
over  those  foreign  periodicals,  and  trying  to  get  some 
translations  from  them  for  the  first  number?  Well, 
Fulkerson  has  brought  his  centipedal  mind  to  bear  on 
the  subject,  and  he's  suggested  that  old  German  friend 
of  mine  I  was  telling  you  of — the  one  I  met  in  the 
restaurant — the  friend  of  my  youth." 

"  Do  you  think  he  could  do  it  ?"  asked  Mrs.  March, 
sceptically. 

"  He's  a  perfect  Babel  of  strange  tongues ;  and  he's 
the  very  man  for  the  work,  and  I  was  ashamed  I  hadn't 
thought  of  him  myself,  for  I  suspect  he  needs  the 
work." 

"  Well,  be  careful  how  you  get  mixed  up  with  him, 
then,  Basil,"  said  his  wife,  who  had  the  natural  mis 
giving  concerning  the  friends  of  her  husband's  youth 
that  all  wives  have.  "  You  know  the  Germans  are  so 
unscrupulously  dependent.  You  don't  know  anything 
about  him  now." 

"  I'm  not  afraid  of  Lindau,"  said  March.  "  He  was 
the  best  and  kindest  man  I  ever  saw,  the  most  high- 
minded,  the  most  generous.  He  lost  a  hand  in  the  war 
that  helped  to  save  us  and  keep  us  possible,  and  that 
stump  of  his  is  character  enough  for  me." 

"  Oh,  you  don't  think  I  could  have  meant  anything 
against  him !"  said  Mrs.  March,  with  the  tender  fervor 
that  every  woman  who  lived  in  the  time  of  the  war 
must  feel  for  those  who  suffered  in  it.  "  All  that  I 
meant  was  that  I  hoped  you  would  not  get  mixed  up 

171 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  him  too  much.  You're  so  apt  to  be  carried  away 
by  your  impulses." 

"  They  didn't  carry  me  very  far  away  in  the  direc 
tion  of  poor  old  Lindau,  I'm  ashamed  to  think/'  said 
March.  "  I  meant  all  sorts  of  fine  things  by  him  after 
I  met  him;  and  then  I  forgot  him,  and  I  had  to  be 
reminded  of  him  by  Fulkerson." 

She  did  not  answer  him,  and  he  fell  into  a  remorse 
ful  reverie,  in  which  he  rehabilitated  Lindau  anew, 
and  provided  handsomely  for  his  old  age.  He  got  him 
buried  with  military  honors,  and  had  a  shaft  raised 
over  him,  with  a  medallion  likeness  by  Beaton  and  an 
epitaph  by  himself,  by  the  time  they  reached  Forty- 
second  Street ;  there  was  no  time  to  write  Lindau's  life, 
however  briefly,  before  the  train  stopped. 

They  had  to  walk  up  four  blocks  and  then  half  a 
block  across  before  they  came  to  the  indistinctive 
brownstone  house  wrhere  the  Dryfooses  lived.  It  was 
larger  than  some  in  the  same  block,  but  the  next  neigh 
borhood  of  a  huge  apartment-house  dwarfed  it  again. 
March  thought  he  recognized  the  very  flat  in  which  he 
had  disciplined  the  surly  janitor,  but  he  did  not  tell 
his  wife;  he  made  her  notice  the  transition  character 
of  the  street,  which  had  been  mostly  built  up  in  apart 
ment-houses,  with  here  and  there  a  single  dwelling 
dropped  far  down  beneath  and  beside  them,  to  that 
jag-toothed  effect  on  the  sky-line  so  often  observable 
in  such  New  York  streets.  "  I  don't  know  exactly  what 
the  old  gentleman  bought  here  for,"  he  said,  as  they 
waited  on  the  steps  after  ringing,  "  unless  he  expects 
to  turn  it  into  flats  by-and-by.  Otherwise,  I  don't  be 
lieve  he'll  get  his  money  back." 

An  Irish  serving-man,  with  a  certain  surprise  that 
delayed  him,  said  the  ladies  were  at  home,  and  let  the 
Marches  in,  and  then  carried  their  cards  up-stairs.  The 

172 


A    IIAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

drawing-room,  where  he  said  they  could  sit  down  while 
he  went  on  this  errand,  was  delicately  decorated  in 
white  and  gold,  and  furnished  with  a  sort  of  extravagant 
good  taste;  there  was  nothing  to  object  to  in  the  satin 
furniture,  the  pale,  soft,  rich  carpet,  the  pictures,  and 
the  bronze  and  china  bric-a-brac,  except  that  their  cost 
liness  was  too  evident;  everything  in  the  room  meant 
money  too  plainly,  and  too  much  of  it.  The  Marches 
recognized  this  in  the  hoarse  whispers  which  people 
cannot  get  their  voices  above  when  they  try  to  talk 
away  the  interval  of  waiting  in  such  circumstances; 
they  conjectured  from  what  they  had  heard  of  the  Dry- 
fooses  that  this  tasteful  luxury  in  no  wise  expressed 
their  civilization.  "  Though  when  you  come  to  that," 
said  March,  "  I  don't  know  that  Mrs.  Green's  gim- 
crackery  expresses  ours." 

"  Well,  Basil,  I  didn't  take  the  gimcrackery.  That 
was  your — 

The  rustle  of  skirts  on  the  stairs  without  arrested 
Mrs.  March  in  the  well-merited  punishment  which  she 
never  failed  to  inflict  upon  her  husband  when  the  ques 
tion  of  the  gimcrackery — they  always  called  it  that — 
came  up.  She  rose  at  the  entrance  of  a  bright-looking, 
pretty-looking,  mature,  youngish  lady,  in  black  silk  of 
a  neutral  implication,  who  put  out  her  hand  to  her, 
and  said,  with  a  very  cheery,  very  ladylike  accent, 
"  Mrs.  March  ?"  and  then  added  to  both  of  them,  while 
she  shook  hands  with  March,  and  before  they  could  get 
the  name  out  of  their  mouths :  "  No,  not  Miss  Dryfoos ! 
Neither  of  them ;  nor  Mrs.  Dryfoos.  Mrs.  Mandel. 
The  ladies  will  be  down  in  a  moment.  Won't  you 
throw  off  your  sacque,  Mrs.  March  \  I'm  afraid  it's 
rather  warm  here,  coming  from  the  outside." 

"  I  will  throw  it  back,  if  you'll  allow  me,"  said 
Mrs.  March,  with  a  sort  of  provisionally,  as  if,  pend- 

173 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ing  some  uncertainty  as  to  Mrs.  Mandel's  quality  and 
authority,  she  did  not  feel  herself  justified  in  going 
further. 

But  if  she  did  not  know  about  Mrs.  Man  del,  Mrs. 
Mandel  seemed  to  know  about  her.  "  Oh,  well,  do !" 
she  said,  with  a  sort  of  recognition  of  the  propriety  of 
her  caution.  "  I  hope  you  are  feeling  a  little  at  home 
in  New  York.  We  heard  so  much  of  your  trouble  in 
getting  a  flat,  from  Mr.  Fulkerson." 

"  Well,  a  true  Bostonian  doesn't  give  up  quite  so 
soon,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "  But  I  will  say  New  York 
doesn't  seem  so  far  away,  now  we're  here." 

"  I'm  sure  you'll  like  it.  Every  one  does."  Mrs. 
Mandel  added  to  March,  "  It's  very  sharp  out,  isn't  it  ?" 

"  Rather  sharp.  But  after  our  Boston  winters  I 
don't  know  but  I  ought  to  repudiate  the  word." 

"  Ah,  wait  till  you  have  been  here  through  March !" 
said  Mrs.  Mandel.  She  began  with  him,  but  skilfully 
transferred  the  close  of  her  remark,  and  the  little  smile 
of  menace  that  went  with  it,  to  his  wife. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  or  April,  either.  Talk 
about  our  east  winds !" 

"  Oh,  I'm  sure  they  can't  be  worse  than  our  winds," 
Mrs.  Mandel  returned,  caressingly. 

"  If  we  escape  N"ew  York  pneumonia,"  March 
laughed,  "  it  will  only  be  to  fall  a  prey  to  New  York 
malaria  as  soon  as  the  frost  is  out  of  the  ground." 

"  Oh,  but  you  kno\y,"  said  Mrs.  Mandel,  "  I  think 
our  malaria  has  really  been  slandered  a  little.  It's 
more  a  matter  of  drainage — of  plumbing.  I  don't  be 
lieve  it  would  be  possible  for  malaria  to  get  into  this 
house,  we've  had  it  gone  over  so  thoroughly." 

Mrs.  March  said,  while  she  tried  to  divine  Mrs. 
Mandel's  position  from  this  statement,  "  It's  certainly 
the  first  duty." 

174 


A    HAZAED    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  If  Mrs.  March  could  have  had  her  way,  we  should 
have  had  the  drainage  of  our  whole  ward  put  in  order," 
said  her  husband,  "  before  we  ventured  to  take  a  fur 
nished  apartment  for  the  winter." 

Mrs.  Mandel  looked  discreetly  at  Mrs.  March  for 
permission  to  laugh  at  this,  but  at  the  same  moment 
both  ladies  became  preoccupied  with  a  second  rustling 
on  the  stairs. 

Two  tall,  well-dressed  young  girls  came  in,  and  Mrs. 
Mandel  introduced,  "  Miss  Dryf oos,  Mrs.  March ;  and 
Miss  Mela  Dryf  oos,  Mr.  March,"  she  added,  and  the 
girls  shook  hands  in  their  several  ways  with  the 
Marches. 

Miss  Dryfoos  had  keen  black  eyes,  and  her  hair  was 
intensely  black.  Her  face,  but  for  the  slight  inward 
curve  of  the  nose,  was  regular,  and  the  smallness  of 
her  nose  and  of  her  mouth  did  not  weaken  her  face, 
but  gave  it  a  curious  effect  of  fierceness,  of  challenge. 
She  had  a  large  black  fan  in  her  hand,  which  she 
waved  in  talking,  with  a  slow,  watchful  nervousness. 
Her  sister  was  blonde,  and  had  a  profile  like  her 
brother's ;  but  her  chin  was  not  so  salient,  and  the  weak 
look  of  the  mouth  was  not  corrected  by  the  spirituality 
or  the  fervor  of  his  eyes,  though  hers  were  of  the  same 
mottled  blue.  She  dropped  into  the  low  seat  beside 
Mrs.  Mandel,  and  intertwined  her  fingers  with  those  of 
the  hand  which  Mrs.  Mandel  let  her  have.  She  smiled 
upon  the  Marches,  while  Miss  Dryfoos  watched  them 
intensely,  with  her  eyes  first  on  one  and  then  on  the 
other,  as  if  she  did  not  mean  to  let  any  expression  of 
theirs  escape  her. 

"  My  mother  will  be  down  in  a  minute,"  she  said  to 
Mrs.  March. 

"  I  hope  we're  not  disturbing  her.     It  is  so  good  of 

you  to  let  us  come  in  the  evening,"  Mrs.  March  replied. 

175 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh,  not  at  all,"  said  the  girl.  "  We  receive  in  the 
evening." 

"  When  we  do  receive,"  Miss  Mela  put  in.  "  We 
don't  always  get  the  chance  to."  She  began  a  laugh, 
which  she  checked  at  a  smile  from  Mrs.  Mandel,  which 
no  one  could  have  seen  to  be  reproving. 

Miss  Dryfoos  looked  down  at  her  fan,  and  looked 
up  defiantly  at  Mrs.  March.  "  I  suppose  you  have 
hardly  got  settled.  We  were  afraid  we  would  disturb 
you  when  we  called." 

"  Oh  no !  We  were  very  sorry  to  miss  your  visit. 
We  are  quite  settled  in  our  new  quarters.  Of  course, 
it's  all  very  different  from  Boston." 

"  I  hope  it's  more  of  a  sociable  place  there,"  Miss 
Mela  broke  in  again.  "  I  never  saw  such  an  unsociable 
place  as  New  York.  We've  been  in  this  house  three 
months,  and  I  don't  believe  that  if  we  stayed  three 
years  any  of  the  neighbors  would  call." 

"  I  fancy  proximity  doesn't  count  for  much  in  New 
York,"  March  suggested. 

Mrs.  Mandel  said :  "  That's  what  I  tell  Miss  Mela. 
But  she  is  a  very  social  nature,  and  can't  reconcile 
herself  to  the  fact." 

"No,  I  can't,"  the  girl  pouted.  "I  think  it  was 
twice  as  much  fun  in  Moffitt.  I  wish  I  was  there 
now." 

"  Yes,"  said  March,  "  I  think  there's  a  great  deal 
more  enjoyment  in  those  smaller  places.  There's  not 
so  much  going  on  in  the  way  of  public  amusements, 
and  so  people  make  more  of  one  another.  There  are 
not  so  many  concerts,  theatres,  operas — ' 

"  Oh,  they've  got  a  splendid  opera-house  in  Moffitt. 
It's  just  grand,"  said  Miss  Mela. 

"  Have  you  been  to  the  opera  here,  this  winter  ?" 

Mrs.  March  asked  of  the  elder  girl. 

176 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

She  was  glaring  with  a  frown  at  her  sister,  and  de 
tached  her  eyes  from  her  with  an  effort.  "  What  did 
yon  say?"  she  demanded,  with  an  absent  bluntness. 
"  Oh  yes.  Yes !  We  went  once.  Father  took  a  box 
at  the  Metropolitan." 

"  Then  you  got  a  good  dose  of  Wagner,  I  suppose  ?" 
said  March. 

"What?"  asked  the  girl. 

"  I  don't  think  Miss  Dryfoos  is  very  fond  of  Wag 
ner's  music,"  Mrs.  Mandel  said.  "  I  believe  you  are 
all  great  Wagnerites  in  Boston  ?" 

"  I'm  a  very  bad  Bostonian,  Mrs.  Mandel.  I  sus 
pect  myself  of  preferring  Verdi,"  March  answered. 

Miss  Dryfoos  looked  down  at  her  fan  again,  and 
said,  "  I  like  '  Trovatore  '  the  best." 

"  It's  an  opera  I  never  get  tired  of,"  said  March, 
and  Mrs.  March  and  Mrs.  Mandel  exchanged  a  smile 
of  compassion  for  his  simplicity.  He  detected  it,  and 
added :  "  But  I  dare  say  I  shall  come  down  with  the 
Wagner  fever  in  time.  I've  been  exposed  to  some 
malignant  cases  of  it." 

"  That  night  we  were  there,"  said  Miss  Mela,  "  they 
had  to  turn  the  gas  down  all  through  one  part  of  it, 
and  the  papers  said  the  ladies  were  awful  mad  because 
they  couldn't  show  their  diamonds.  I  don't  wonder, 
if  they  all  had  to  pay  as  much  for  their  boxes  as  we 
did.  We  had  to  pay  sixty  dollars."  She  looked  at  the 
Marches  for  their  sensation  at  this  expense. 

March  said :  "  Well,  I  think  I  shall  take  my  box  by 
the  month,  then.  It  must  come  cheaper,  wholesale." 

"  Oh  no,  it  don't,"  said  the  girl,  glad  to  inform  him. 
"  The  people  that  own  their  boxes,  and  that  had  to  give 
fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  dollars  apiece  for  them,  have 
to  pay  sixty  dollars  a  night  whenever  there's  a  per 
formance,  whether  they  go  or  not." 

177 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Then  I  should  go  every  night/7  March  said. 

"  Most  of  the  ladies  were  low  neck — 

March  interposed,  "  Well,  I  shouldn't  go  low 
neck" 

The  girl  broke  into  a  fondly  approving  laugh  at 
his  drolling.  "  Oh,  I  guess  you  love  to  train !  Us 
girls  wanted  to  go  low  neck,  too;  but  father  said  we 
shouldn't,  and  mother  said  if  we  did  she  wouldn't  come 
to  the  front  of  the  box  once.  Well,  she  didn't,  anyway. 
We  might  just  as  well  'a'  gone  low  neck.  She  stayed 
back  the  whole  time,  and  when  they  had  that  dance — 
the  ballet,  you  knowT — she  just  shut  her  eyes.  Well, 
Conrad  didn't  like  that  part  much,  either ;  but  us  girls 
and  Mrs.  Mandel,  we  brazened  it  out  right  in  the  front 
of  the  box.  We  were  about  the  only  ones  there  that 
went  high  neck.  Conrad  had  to  wear  a  swallow-tail; 
but  father  hadn't  any,  and  he  had  to  patch  out  writh  a 
white  cravat.  You  couldn't  see  what  he  had  on  in  the 
back  o'  the  box,  anyway." 

Mrs.  March  looked  at  Miss  Dryfoos,  who  was  waving 
her  fan  more  and  more  slowly  up  and  down,  and  who, 
when  she  felt  herself  looked  at,  returned  Mrs.  March's 
smile,  which  she  meant  to  be  ingratiating  and  perhaps 
sympathetic,  with  a  flash  that  made  her  start,  and  then 
ran  her  fierce  eyes  over  March's  face.  "  Here  comes 
mother,"  she  said,  with  a  sort  of  breathlessness,  as  if 
speaking  her  thought  aloud,  and  through  the  open  door 
the  Marches  could  see  the  old  lady  on  the  stairs. 

She  paused  half-way  down,  and  turning,  called  up: 
"  Coonrod !  Coonrod !  You  bring  my  shawl  down  with 
you." 

Her  daughter  Mela  called  out  to  her,  "  2^ow,  mother, 
Christine  '11  give  it  to  you  for  not  sending  Mike." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  where  he  is,  Mely,  child,"  the 
mother  answered  back.  "  He  ain't  never  around  when 

178 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

lie's  wanted,  aiid  when  lie  ain't,  it  seems  like  a  body 
couldn't  git  shet  of  him,  nohow." 

"  Well,  you  ought  to  ring  for  him !"  cried  Miss  Mela, 
enjoying  the  joke. 

Her  mother  came  in  with  a  slow  step;  her  head 
shook  slightly  as  she  looked  about  the  room,  perhaps 
from  nervousness,  perhaps  from  a  touch  of  palsy.  In 
either  case  the  fact  had  a  pathos  which  Mrs.  March 
confessed  in  the  affection  with  which 'she  took  her  hard, 
dry,  large,  old  hand  when  she  was  introduced  to  her, 
and  in  the  sincerity  which  she  put  into  the  hope  that 
she  was  well. 

"  I'm  just  middling"  Mrs.  Dryfoos  replied.  "  I 
ain't  never  so  well,  nowadays.  I  tell  fawther  I  don't 
believe  it  agrees  with  me  very  well  here,  but  he  says 
I'll  git  used  to  it.  He's  away  now,  out  at  Moffitt,"  she 
said  to  March,  and  wavered  on  foot  a  moment  before 
she  sank  into  a  chair.  She  was  a  tall  woman,  who 
had  been  a  beautiful  girl,  and  her  gray  hair  had  a 
memory  of  blondeness  in  it  like  Lindau's,  March  noticed. 
She  wore  a  simple  silk  gown,  of  a  Quakerly  gray,  and 
she  held  a  handkerchief  folded  square,  as  it  had  come 
from  the  laundress.  Something  like  the  Sabbath  quiet 
of  a  little  wooden  meeting  -  house  in  thick  Western 
woods  expressed  itself  to  him  from  her  presence. 

"  Laws,  mother !"  said  Miss  Mela ;  "  what  you  got 
that  old  thing  on  for  ?  If  I'd  'a'  known  you'd  'a'  come 
down  in  that!" 

"  Coonrod  said  it  was  all  right,  Mely,"  said  her 
mother. 

Miss  Mela  explained  to  the  Marches :  "  Mother  was 
raised  among  the  'Dunkards,  and  she  thinks  it's  wicked 
to  wear  anything  but  a  gray  silk  even  for  dress-up." 

"  You  hain't  never  beared  o?  the  Dunkards,  I 
reckon,"  the  old  woman  said  to  Mrs.  March.  "  Some 
13  179 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

folks  calls  'em  the  Beardy  Men,  because  they  don't 
never  shave ;  and  they  wash  feet  like  they  do  in  the 
Testament.  My  uncle  was  one.  He  raised  me." 

"  I  guess  pretty  much  everybody's  a  Beardy  Man 
nowadays,  if  he  ain't  a  Dunkard!" 

Miss  Mela  looked  round  for  applause  of  her  sally, 
but  March  was  saying  to  his  wif e :  "  It's  a  Pennsyl 
vania  German  sect,  I  believe  —  something  like  the 
Quakers.  I  used  to  see  them  when  I  was  a  boy." 

"  Aren't  they  something  like  the  Mennists  ?"  asked 
Mrs.  Mandel. 

"  They're  good  people,"  said  the  old  woman,  "  and 
the  world  'd  be  a  heap  better  off  if  there  was  more 
like  'em." 

Her  son  came  in  and  laid  a  soft  shawl  over  her 
shoulders  before  he  shook  hands  with  the  visitors. 
"  I  am  glad  you  found  your  way  here,"  he  said  to 
them. 

Christine,  who  had  been  bending  forward  over  her 
fan,  now  lifted  herself  up  with  a  sigh  and  leaned  back 
in  her  chair. 

"  I'm  sorry  my  father  isn't  here,"  said  the  young 
man  to  Mrs.  March.  "  He's  never  met  you  yet  ?" 

"No;  and  I  should  like  to  see  him.  We  hear  a 
great  deal  about  your  father,  you  know,  from  Mr. 
Fulkerson." 

"  Oh,  I  hope  you  don't  believe  everything  Mr.  Ful 
kerson  says  about  people,"  Mela  cried.  "  He's  the 
greatest  person  for  carrying  on  when  he  gets  going  I 
ever  saw.  It  makes  Christine  just  as  mad  when  him 
and  mother  gets  to  talking  about  religion ;  she  says  she 
knows  he  don't  care  anything  more  about  it  than  the 
man  in  the  moon.  I  reckon  he  don't  try  it  on  much 
with  father." 

"  Your  fawther  ain't  ever  been  a  perfessor,"  her 
180 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

mother  interposed ;  "  but  he's  always  been  a  good 
church-goin'  man." 

"  Not  since  we  come  to  New  York/'  retorted  the 
girl. 

"  He's  been  all  broke  up  since  he  come  to  New 
York,"  said  the  old  woman,  with  an  aggrieved  look. 

Mrs.  Mandel  attempted  a  diversion.  "  Have  you 
heard  any  of  our  great  New  York  preachers  yet,  Mrs. 
March  ?" 

"No,  I  haven't,"  Mrs.  March  admitted;  and  she 
tried  to  imply  by  her  candid  tone  that  she  intended 
to  begin  hearing  them  the  very  next  Sunday. 

"  There  are  a  great  many  things  here,"  said  Conrad, 
"  to  take  your  thoughts  off  the  preaching  that  you  hear 
in  most  of  the  churches.  I  think  the  city  itself  is 
preaching  the  best  sermon  all  the  time." 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  understand  you,"  said 
March. 

Mela  answered  for  him.  "  Oh,  Conrad  has  got  a 
lot  of  notions  that  nobody  can  understand.  You  ought 
to  see  the  church  he  goes  to  when  he  does  go.  I'd  about 
as  lief  go  to  a  Catholic  church  myself;  I  don't  see  a 
bit  o'  difference.  He's  the  greatest  crony  with  one  of 
their  preachers;  he  dresses  just  like  a  priest,  and  he 
says  he  is  a  priest."  She  laughed  for  enjoyment  of 
the  fact,  and  her  brother  cast  down  his  eyes. 

Mrs.  March,  in  her  turn,  tried  to  take  from  it  the 
personal  tone  which  the  talk  was  always  assuming. 
"  Have  you  been  to  the  fall  exhibition  ?"  she  asked 
Christine ;  and  the  girl  drew  herself  up  out  of  the 
abstraction  she  seemed  sunk  in. 

"  The  exhibition «"     She  looked  at  Mrs.  Mandel. 

"  The  pictures  of  the  Academy,  you  know,"  Mrs. 
Mandel  explained.  "  Where  I  wanted  you  to  go  the 

day  you  had  your  dress  tried  on." 

181 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  No ;  we  haven't  been  yet.  Is  it  good  ?"  She  had 
turned  to  Mrs.  March  again. 

"  I  believe  the  fall  exhibitions  are  never  so  good  as 
the  spring  ones.  But  there  are  some  good  pictures.77 

"  I  don't  believe  I  care  much  about  pictures/'  said 
Christine.  "  I  don't  understand  them." 

"  Ah,  that's  no  excuse  for  not  caring  about  them," 
said  March,  lightly.  "  The  painters  themselves  don't, 
half  the  time." 

The  girl  looked  at  him  with  that  glance  at  once 
defiant  and  appealing,  insolent  and  anxious,  which  he 
had  noticed  before,  especially  when  she  stole  it  toward 
himself  and  his  wife  during  her  sister's  babble.  In 
the  light  of  Fulkerson's  history  of  the  family,  its  origin 
and  its  ambition,  he  interpreted  it  to  mean  a  sense  of 
her  sister's  folly  and  an  ignorant  will  to  override  his 
opinion  of  anything  incongruous  in  themselves  and 
their  surroundings.  He  said  to  himself  that  she  was 
deathly  proud — too  proud  to  try  to  palliate  anything, 
but  capable  of  anything  that  would  put  others  under 
her  feet.  Her  eyes  seemed  hopelessly  to  question  his 
wife's  social  quality,  and  he  fancied,  with  not  unkindly 
interest,  the  inexperienced  girl's  doubt  whether  to  treat 
them  with  much  or  little  respect.  He  lost  himself  in 
fancies  about  her  and  her  ideals,  necessarily  sordid,  of 
her  possibilities  of  suffering,  of  the  triumphs  and  dis 
appointments  before  her.  Her  sister  would  accept  both 
with  a  lightness  that  would  keep  no  trace  of  either; 
but  in  her  they  would  sink  lastingly  deep.  He  came  out 
of  his  reverie  to  find  Mrs.  Dryfoos  saying  to  him,  in 
her  hoarse  voice : 

"  I  think  it's  a  shame,  some  of  the  pictur's  a  body 
sees  in  the  winders.  They  say  there's  a  law  ag'inst 
them  things;  and  if  there  is,  I  don't  understand  why 
the  police  don't  take  up  them  that  paints  'em.  I  hear 

182 


A    HAZAED    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

tell,  since  I  been  here,  that  there's  women  that  goes  to 
have  pictur's  took  from  them  that  way  by  men  paint 
ers."  The  point  seemed  aimed  at  March,  as  if  he  were 
personally  responsible  for  the  scandal,  and  it  fell  with 
a  silencing  effect  for  the  moment.  Nobody  seemed 
willing  to  take  it  up,  and  Mrs.  Dryfoos  went  on,  with 
an  old  woman's  severity :  "  I  say  they  ought  to  be  all 
tarred  and  feathered  and  rode  on  a  rail.  They'd  be 
drummed  out  of  town  in  Moffitt." 

Miss  Mela  said,  with  a  crowing  laugh :  "  I  should 
think  they  would !  And  they  wouldn't  anybody  go  low 
neck  to  the  opera-house  there,  either — not  low  neck  the 
way  they  do  here,  anyway." 

"  And  that  pack  of  worthless  hussies,"  her  mother 
resumed,  "  that  come  out  on  the  stage,  and  begun  to 
kick—" 

"  Laws,  mother !"  the  girl  shouted,  "  I  thought  you 
said  you  had  your  eyes  shut !" 

All  but  these  two  simpler  creatures  were  abashed 
at  the  indecorum  of  suggesting  in  words  the  common 
places  of  the  theatre  and  of  art. 

"  Well,  I  did,  Mely,  as  soon  as  I  could  believe  my 
eyes.  I  don't  know  what  they're  doin'  in  all  their 
churches,  to  let  such  things  go  on,"  said  the  old  woman. 
"  It's  a  sin  and  a  shame,  I  think.  Don't  you,  Coon- 
rod?" 

A  ring  at  the  door  cut  short  whatever  answer  he 
was  about  to  deliver. 

"  If  it's  going  to  be  company,  Coonrod,"  said  his 
mother,  making  an  effort  to  rise,  "  I  reckon  I  better 
go  up-stairs." 

"  It's  Mr.  Fulkerson,  I  guess,"  said  Conrad.  "  He 
thought  he  might  come  " ;  and  at  the  mention  of  this 
light  spirit  Mrs.  Dryfoos  sank  contentedly  back  in  her 
chair,  and  a  relaxation  of  their  painful  tension  seemed 

183 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

to  pass  through  the  whole  company.  Conrad  went  to 
the  door  himself  (the  serving-man  tentatively  appeared 
some  minutes  later)  and  let  in  Fulkerson's  cheerful 
voice  before  his  cheerful  person. 

"  Ah,  how  d'ye  do,  Conrad  ?  Brought  our  friend, 
Mr.  Beaton,  with  me,"  those  within  heard  him  say; 
and  then,  after  a  sound  of  putting  off  overcoats,  they 
saw  him  fill  the  doorway,  with  his  feet  set  square  and 
his  arms  akimbo. 


IX 


"  An !  hello !  hello !"  Fulkerson  said,  in  recognition 
of  the  Marches.  "  Regular  gathering  of  the  clans. 
How  are  you,  Mrs.  Dryfoos  ?  How  do  you  do,  Mrs. 
Mandel,  Miss  Christine,  Mela,  Aunt  Hitty,  and  all 
the  folks  ?  How  you  wuz  2"  He  shook  hands  gayly 
all  round,  and  took  a  chair  next  the  old  lady,  whose 
hand  he  kept  in  his  own,  and  left  Conrad  to  introduce 
Beaton.  But  he  would  not  let  the  shadow  of  Beaton's 
solemnity  fall  upon  the  company.  He  began  to  joke 
with  Mrs.  Dryfoos,  and  to  match  rheumatisms  with 
her,  and  he  included  all  the  ladies  in  the  range  of 
appropriate  pleasantries.  "  I've  brought  Mr.  Beaton 
along  to-night,  and  I  want  you  to  make  him  feel  at 
home,  like  you  do  me,  Mrs.  Dryfoos.  He  hasn't  got 
any  rheumatism  to  speak  of;  but  his  parents  live  in 
Syracuse,  and  he's  a  kind  of  an  orphan,  and  we've 
just  adopted  him  down  at  the  office.  When  you  going 
to  bring  the  young  ladies  down  there,  Mrs.  Mandel, 
for  a  champagne  lunch  ?  I  will  have  some  hydro- 
Mela,  and  Christine  it,  heigh?  How's  that  for  a  little 
starter  ?  We  dropped  in  at  your  place  a  moment,  Mrs. 
March,  and  gave  the  young  folks  a  few  pointers  about 
their  studies.  My  goodness !  it  does  me  good  to  see  a 
boy  like  that  of  yours;  business,  from  the  word  go; 
and  your  girl  just  scoops  my  youthful  affections.  She's 
a  beauty,  and  I  guess  she's  good,  too.  Well,  well,  what 

a  world  it  is !     Miss  Christine,  won't  you  show  Mr. 

185 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Beaton  that  seal  ring  of  yours  ?  He  knows  about  such 
things,  and  I  brought  him  here  to  see  it  as  much  as 
anything.  It's  an  intaglio  I  brought  from  the  other 
side,"  he  explained  to  Mrs.  March,  "  and  I  guess  you'll 
like  to  look  at  it.  Tried  to  give  it  to  the  Dryfoos  fam 
ily,  and  when  I  couldn't,  I  sold  it  to  'em.  Bound  to 
see  it  on  Miss  Christine's  hand  somehow!  Hold  on! 
Let  him  see  it  where  it  belongs,  first !" 

He  arrested  the  girl  in  the  motion  she  made  to  take 
off  the  ring,  and  let  her  have  the  pleasure  of  showing 
her  hand  to  the  company  with  the  ring  on  it.  Then  he 
left  her  to  hear  the  painter's  words  about  it,  which 
he  continued  to  deliver  dissyllabically  as  he  stood  with 
her  under  a  gas-jet,  twisting  his  elastic  figure  and  bend 
ing  his  head  over  the  ring. 

"  Well,  Mely,  child,"  Fulkerson  went  on,  with  an 
open  travesty  of  her  mother's  habitual  address,  "  and 
how  are  you  getting  along?  Mrs.  Mandel  hold  you 
up  to  the  proprieties  pretty  strictly  ?  Well,  that's  right. 
You  know  you'd  be  roaming  all  over  the  pasture  if  she 
didn't." 

The  girl  gurgled  out  her  pleasure  in  his  funning, 
and  everybody  took  him  on  his  own  ground  of  privi 
leged  character.  He  brought  them  all  together  in  their 
friendliness  for '  himself,  and  before  the  evening  was 
over  he  had  inspired  Mrs.  Mandel  to  have  them  served 
with  coffee,  and  had  made  both  the  girls  feel  that  they 
had  figured  brilliantly  in  society,  an<J  that  two  young 
men  had  been  devoted  to  them. 

"  Oh,  I  think  he's  just  as  lovely  as  he  can  live !" 
said  Mela,  as  she  stood  a  moment  with  her  sister  on 
the  scene  of  her  triumph,  where  the  others  had  left 
them  after  the  departure  of  their  guests. 

"  Who  ?"  asked  Christine,  deeply.  As  she  glanced 
down  at  her  ring,  her  eyes  burned  with  a  softened  fire. 

186 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

She  had  allowed  Beaton  to  change  it  himself  from  the 
finger  where  she  had  worn  it  to  the  finger  on  which  he 
said  she  ought  to  wear  it.  She  did  not  know  whether 
it  was  right  to  let  him,  but  she  was  glad  she  had 
done  it. 

"  Who  ?  Mr.  Fulkerson,  goosie-poosie !  Not  that 
old  stuck-up  Mr.  Beaton  of  yours !" 

"  He  is  proud,"  assented  Christine,  with  a  throb  of 
exultation. 

Beaton  and  Fulkerson  went  to  the  Elevated  station 
with  the  Marches ;  but  the  painter  said  he  was  going  to 
walk  home,  and  Fulkerson  let  him  go  alone. 

"  One  way  is  enough  for  me,"  he  explained.  "  When 
I  walk  up,  I  don't  walk  down.  Bye-bye,  my  son !"  He 
began  talking  about  Beaton  to  the  Marches  as  they 
climbed  the  station  stairs  together.  "  That  fellow 
puzzles  me.  I  don't  know  anybody  that  I  have  such 
a  desire  to  kick,  and  at  the  same  time  that  I  want  to 
flatter  up  so  much.  Affect  you  that  way  ?"  he  asked  of 
March. 

"  Well,  as  far  as  the  kicking  goes,  yes." 

"  And  how  is  it  with  you,  Mrs.  March  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  want  to  flatter  him  up." 

"No;  really?  Why?  — Hold  on!  I've  got  the 
change." 

Fulkerson  pushed  March  away  from  the  ticket-office 
window,  and  made  them  his  guests,  with  the  inex 
orable  American  hospitality,  for  the  ride  down-town. 
u  Three !"  he  said  to  the  ticket-seller ;  and,  when  he  had 
walked  them  before  him  out  on  the  platform  and  drop 
ped  his  tickets  into  the  urn,  he  persisted  in  his  in 
quiry,  "Why?" 

"  Why,  because  you  always  want  to  flatter  conceited 
people,  don't  you?"  Mrs.  March  answered,  with  a 
laugh. 

187 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Do  you  ?  Yes,  I  guess  you  do.  You  think  Beaton 
is  conceited  ?" 

"  Well,  slightly,  Mr.  Fulkerson." 

"  I  guess  you're  partly  right,"  said  Fulkerson,  with 
a  sigh,  so  unaccountable  in  its  connection  that  they  all 
laughed. 

"  An  ideal  (  busted  '  ?"  March  suggested. 

"No,  not  that,  exactly,7'  said  Fulkerson.  "But  I 
had  a  notion  maybe  Beaton  wasn't  conceited  all  the 
time." 

"  Oh !"  Mrs.  March  exulted,  "  nobody  could  be  so 
conceited  all  the  time  as  Mr.  Beaton  is  most  of  the 
time.  He  must  have  moments  of  the  direst  modesty, 
when  he'd  be  quite  flattery-proof." 

"  Yes,  that's  what  I  mean.  I  guess  that's  what  makes 
me  want  to  kick  him.  He's  left  compliments  on  my 
hands  that  no  decent  man  would." 

"  Oh !  that's  tragical,"  said  March. 

"  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  Mrs.  March  began,  with  change 
of  subject  in  her  voice,  "  who  is  Mrs.  Mandel  ?" 

"Who?  What  do  you  think  of  her?"  he  rejoined. 
"  I'll  tell  you  about  her  when  we  get  in  the  cars.  Look 
at  that  thing !  Ain't  it  beautiful  ?" 

They  leaned  over  the  track  and  looked  up  at  the 
next  station,  where  the  train,  just  starting,  throb 
bed  out  the  flame  -  shot  steam  into  the  white  moon 
light. 

"  The  most  beautiful  thing  in  New  York — the  one 
always  and  certainly  beautiful  thing  here,"  said  March ; 
and  his  wife  sighed,  "  Yes,  yes."  She  clung  to  him, 
and  remained  rapt  by  the  sight  till  the  train  drew  near, 
and  then  pulled  him  back  in  a  panic. 

"  Well,  there  ain't  really  much  to  tell  about  her," 
Fulkerson  resumed  when  they  were  seated  in  the  car. 
"  She's  an  invention,  of  mine." 

188 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Of  yours  ?"  cried  Mrs.  March. 

"  Of  course !"  exclaimed  her  husband. 
•  "  Yes — at  least  in  her  present  capacity.  She  sent 
me  a  story  for  the  syndicate,  back  in  July  some  time, 
along  about  the  time  I  first  met  old  Dryfoos  here.  It 
was  a  little  too  long  for  my  purpose,  and  I  thought  I 
could  explain  better  how  I  wanted  it  cut  in  a  call  than 
I  could  in  a  letter.  She  gave  a  Brooklyn  address,  and 
I  went  to  see  her.  I  found  her,"  said  Fulkerson,  with 
a  vague  defiance,  "  a  perfect  lady.  She  was  living  with 
an  aunt  over  there ;  and  she  had  seen  better  days,  when 
she  was  a  girl,  and  worse  ones  afterward.  I  don't 
mean  to  say  her  husband  was  a  bad  fellow;  I  guess 
he  was  pretty  good ;  he  was  her  music-teacher ;  she  met 
him  in  Germany,  and  they  got  married  there,  and  got 
through  her  property  before  they  came  over  here.  Well, 
she  didn't  strike  me  like  a  person  that  could  make  much 
headway  in  literature.  Her  story  was  well  enough,  but 
it  hadn't  much  sand  in  it;  kind  of — well,  academic,  you 
know.  I  told  her  so,  and  she  iinderstood,  and  cried  a 
little;  but  she  did  the  best  she  could  with  the  thing, 
and  I  took  it  and  syndicated  it.  She  kind  of  stuck 
in  my  mind,  and  the  first  time  I  went  to  see  the 
Dryfooses  —  they  were  stopping  at  a  sort  of  family 
hotel  then  till  they  could  find  a  house —  Fulker 
son  broke  off  altogether,  and  said,  "  I  don't  know 
as  I  know  just  how  the  Dryfooses  struck  you,  Mrs. 
March  ?" 

"  Can't  you  imagine  ?"  she  answered,  with  a  kindly^ 
smile. 

"  Yes ;  but  I  don't  believe  I  could  guess  how  they 
would  have  struck  you  last  summer  when  I  first  saw 
them.  My !  oh  my !  there  was  the  native  earth  for 
you.  Mely  is  a  pretty  wild  colt  now,  but  you  ought 

to  have   seen  her  before  she  was  broken  to  harness. 

189 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

And  Christine  ?  Ever  see  that  black  leopard  they  got 
up  there  in  the  Central  Park?  That  was  Christine. 
Well,  I  saw  what  they  wanted.  They  all  saw  it — 
nobody  is  a  fool  in  all  directions,  and  the  Dryfooses 
are  in  their  right  senses  a  good  deal  of  the  time.  Well, 
to  cut  a  long  story  short,  I  got  Mrs.  Mandel  to  take  'em 
in  hand — the  old  lady  as  well  as  the  girls.  She  was  a 
born  lady,  and  always  lived  like  one  till  she  saw 
Mandel ;  and  that  something  academic  that  killed  her 
for  a  writer  was  just  the  very  thing  for  them.  She 
knows  the  world  well  enough  to  know  just  how  much 
polish  they  can  take  on,  and  she  don't  try  to  put  on  a 
bit  more.  See  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  can  see,"  said  Mrs.  March. 

"  Well,  she  took  hold  at  once,  as  ready  as  a  hospital- 
trained  nurse;  and  there  ain't  anything  readier  on  this 
planet.  She  runs  the  whole  concern,  socially  and  eco 
nomically,  takes  all  the  care  of  housekeeping  off  the 
old  lady's  hands,  and  goes  round  with  the  girls.  By- 
the-bye,  I'm  going  to  take  my  meals  at  your  widow's, 
March,  and  Conrad's  going  to  have  his  lunch  there. 
I'm  sick  of  browsing  about." 

"  Mr.  March's  widow?"  said  his  wife,  looking  at  him 
with  provisional  severity. 

"  I  have  no  widow,  Isabel,"  he  said,  "  and  never 
expect  to  have,  till  I  leave  you  in  the  enjoyment  of 
my  life-insurance.  I  suppose  Fulkerson  means  the 
lady  with  the  daughter  who  wanted  to  take  us  to 
board." 

"  Oh  yes.  How  are  they  getting  on,  I  do  wonder  ?" 
Mrs.  March  asked  of  Fulkerson. 

"  Well,  they've  got  one  family  to  board ;  but  it's  a 
small  one.  I  guess  they'll  pull  through.  They  didn't 
want  to  take  any  day  boarders  at  first,  the  widow  said; 

I  guess  they  have  had  to  come  to  it." 

190 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Poor  things  !"  sighed  Mrs.  March.  "  I  hope  they'll 
go  back  to  the  country." 

''  Well,  I  don't,  know.  When  you've  once  tasted  New 
York —  You  wouldn't  go  back  to  Boston,  would  you  ?" 

"  Instantly." 

Fulkerson  laughed  out  a  tolerant  incredulity. 


BEATON  lit  his  pipe  when  he  found  himself  in  his 
room,  and  sat  down  before  the  dull  fire  in  his  grate  to 
think.  It  struck  him  there  was  a  dull  fire  in  his  heart 
a  great  deal  like  it,  and  he  worked  out  a  fanciful 
analogy  with  the  coals,  still  alive,  and  the  ashes  creep 
ing  over  them,  and  the  dead  clay  and  cinders.  He  felt 
sick  of  himself,  sick  of  his  life  and  of  all  his  works. 
He  was  angry  with  Fulkerson  for  having  got  him  into 
that  art  department  of  his,  for  having  bought  him  up ; 
and  he  was  bitter  at  fate  because  he  had  been  obliged 
to  use  the  money  to  pay  some  pressing  debts,  and  had 
not  been  able  to  return  the  check  his  father  had  sent 
him.  He  pitied  his  poor  old  father;  he  ached  with 
compassion  for  him ;  and  he  set  his  teeth  and  snarled 
with  contempt  through  them  for  his  own  baseness. 
This  was  the  kind  of  world  it  was;  but  he  washed 
his  hands  of  it.  The  fault  was  in  human  nature, 
and  he  reflected  with  pride  that  he  had  at  least  not 
invented  human  nature ;  he  had  not  sunk  so  low  as  that 
yet.  The  notion  amused  him ;  he  thought  he  might  get 
a  Satanic  epigram  out  of  it  some  way.  But  in  the 
mean  time  that  girl,  that  wild  animal,  she  kept  visibly, 
tangibly  before  him;  if  he  put  out  his  hand  he  might 
touch  hers,  he  might  pass  Jiis  arm  round  her  waist. 
In  Paris,  in  a  set  he  knew  there,  what  an  effect  she 
would  be  with  that  look  of  hers,  and  that  beauty,  all 

out   of  drawing!      They   would    recognize   the   flame 

192 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

quality  in  her.  He  imagined  a  joke  about  her  be 
ing  a  fiery  spirit,  or-  nymph,  naiad,  whatever,  from 
one  of  her  native  gas-wells.  He  began  to  sketch  on 
a  bit  of  paper  from  the  table  at  his  elbow  vague  lines 
that  veiled  and  revealed  a  level,  dismal  landscape,  and 
a  vast  flame  against  an  empty  sky,  and  a  shape  out  of 
the  flame  that  took  on  a  likeness  and  floated  detached 
from  it.  The  sketch  ran  up  the  left  side  of  the  sheet 
and  stretched  across  it.  Beaton  laughed  out.  Pretty 
good  to  let  Fulkerson  have  that  for  the  cover  of  his 
first  number !  In  black  and  red  it  would  be  effective ; 
it  would  catch  the  eye  from  the  news-stands.  He  made 
a  motion  to  throw  it  on  the  fire,  but  held  it  back  and 
slid  it  into  the  table-drawer,  and  smoked  on.  He  saw 
the  dummy  with  the  other  sketch  in  the  open  drawer 
which  he  had  brought  away  from  Fulkerson's  in  the 
morning  and  slipped  in  there,  and  he  took  it  out  and 
looked  at  it.  He  made  some  criticisms  in  line  with 
his  pencil  on  it,  correcting  the  drawing  here  and  there, 
and  then  he  respected  it  a  little  more,  though  he  still 
smiled  at  the  feminine  quality — a  young  lady  quality. 
In  spite  of  his  experience  the  night  he  called  upon 
the  Leightons,  Beaton  could  not  believe  that  Alma  no 
longer  cared  for  him.  She  played  at  having  forgotten 
him  admirably,  but  he  knew  that  a  few  months  before 
she  had  been  very  mindful  of  him.  He  knew  he  had 
neglected  them  since  they  came  to  New  York,  where  he 
had  led  them  to  expect  interest,  if  not  attention ;  but 
he  was  used  to  neglecting  people,  and  he  was  some 
what  less  used  to  being  punished  for  it — punished  and 
forgiven.  He  felt  that  Alma  had  punished  him  so 
thoroughly  that  she  ought  to  have  been  satisfied  with 
her  work  and  to  have  forgiven  him  in  her  heart  after 
ward.  He  bore  no  resentment  after  the  first  tingling 

moments  were  past;  he  rather  admired  her  for  it;  and 

193 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

he  would  have  been  ready  to  go  back  half  an  hour  later 
and  accept  pardon  and  be  on  the  footing  of  last  sum 
mer  again.  Even  now  he  debated  with  himself  whether 
it  was  too  late  to  call ;  but,  decidedly,  a  quarter  to  ten 
seemed  late.  The  next  day  he  determined  never  to 
call  upon  the  Leightons  again;  but  he  had  no  reason 
for  this;  it  merely  came  into  a  transitory  scheme  of 
conduct,  of  retirement  from  the  society  of  women  al 
together;  and  after  dinner  he  went  round  to  see  them. 

He  asked  for  the  ladies,  and  they  all  three  received 
him,  Alma  not  without  a  surprise  that  intimated  itself 
to  him,  and  her  mother  with  no  appreciable  relent 
ing;  Miss  Woodburn,  with  the  needlework  which  she 
found  easier  to  be  voluble  over  than  a  book,  expressed 
in  her  welcome  a  neutrality  both  cordial  to  Beaton  and 
loyal  to  Alma. 

"  Is  it  snowing  outdo's  ?"  she  asked,  briskly,  after 
the  greetings  were  transacted.  "  Mali  goodness !"  she 
said,  in  answer  to  his  apparent  surprise  at  the  ques 
tion.  "  Ah  mahght  as  well  have  stayed  in  the  Soath, 
for  all  the  winter  Ah  have  seen  in  New  York  yet." 

"  We  don't  often  have  snow  much  before  New- 
Year's,"  said  Beaton. 

"  Miss  Woodburn  is  wild  for  a  real  Northern  win 
ter,"  Mrs.  Leighton  explained. 

"  The  othah  naght  Ah  woke  up  and  looked  oat  of 
the  window  and  saw  all  the  roofs  covered  with  snow, 
and  it  turned  oat  to  be  nothing  but  moonlaght.  Ah  was 
never  so  disappointed  in  mail  lahfe,"  said  Miss  Wood- 
burn. 

"  If  you'll  come  to  St.  Barnaby  next  summer,  you 
shall  have  all  the  winter  you  want,"  said  Alma. 

"  I  can't  let  you  slander  St.  Barnaby  in  that  way," 
said  Beaton,  with  the  air  of  wishing  to  be  understood 

as  meaning  more  than  he  said. 

194 


A    HAZARD    01*    NEW    FORTUNES 

"Yes?"  returned  Alma,  coolly.  "I  didn't  know 
you  were  so  fond  of  the  climate." 

"  I  never  think  of  it  as  a  climate.  It's  a  landscape. 
It  doesn't  matter  whether  it's  hot  or  cold." 

"  With  the  thermometer  twenty  below,  you'd  find 
that  it  mattered,"  Alma  persisted. 

"  Is  that  the  way  you  feel  about  St.  Barnaby,  too, 
Mrs.  Leighton  ?"  Beaton  asked,  with  affected  desolation. 

"  I  shall  be  glad  enough  to  go  back  in  the  summer," 
Mrs.  Leighton  conceded. 

"  And  I  should  be  glad  to  go  now,"  said  Beaton, 
looking  at  Alma.  He  had  the  dummy  of  Every  Other 
Week  in  his  hand,  and  he  saw  Alma's  eyes  wondering 
toward  it  whenever  he  glanced  at  her.  "  I  should  be 
glad  to  go  anywhere  to  get  out  of  a  job  I've  under 
taken,"  he  continued,  to  Mrs.  Leighton.  "  They're  go 
ing  to  start  some  sort  of  a  new  illustrated  magazine, 
and  they've  got  me  in  for  their  art  department.  I'm 
not  fit  for  it;  I'd  like  to  run  away.  Don't  you  want 
to  advise  me  a  little,  Mrs.  Leighton  ?  You  know  how 
much  I  value  your  taste,  and  I'd  like  to  have  you  look 
at  the  design  for  the  cover  of  the  first  number:  they're 
going  to  have  a  different  one  for  every  number.  I 
don't  know  whether  you'll  agree  with  me,  but  I  think 
this  is  rather  nice." 

He  faced  the  dummy  round,  and  then  laid  it  on  the 
table  before  Mrs.  Leighton,  pushing  some  of  her  work 
aside  to  make  room  for  it  and  standing  over  her  while 
she  bent  forward  to  look  at  it. 

Alma  kept  her  place,  away  from  the  table. 

"  Mah  goodness!  Ho'  exciting!"  said  Miss  Wood- 
burn.  "  May  anybody  look  ?" 

"  Everybody,"  said  Beaton. 

"  Well,  isn't  it  perfectly  choming !"  Miss  Wood- 
burn  exclaimed.  "  Come  and  look  at  this,  Miss 
14  195 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Leighton,"  she  called  to  Alma,  who  reluctantly  ap 
proached. 

"  What  lines  are  these  ?"  Mrs.  Leighton  asked,  point 
ing  to  Beaton's  pencil  scratches. 

"  They're  suggestions  of  modifications/'  he  replied. 

"  I  don't  think  they  improve  it  much.  .What  do  you 
think,  Alma «" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  girl,  constraining  her 
voice  to  an  effect  of  indifference  and  glancing  carelessly 
down  at  the  sketch.  "  The  design  might  be  improved ; 
but  I  don't  think  those  suggestions  would  do  it." 

"  They're  mine,"  said  Beaton,  fixing  his  eves  upon 
her  with  a  beautiful  sad  dreaminess  that  he  knew  he 
could  put  into  them;  he  spoke  with  a  dreamy  remote 
ness  of  tone — his  wind-harp  stop,  Wetmore  called  it. 

"  I  supposed  so,"  said  Alma,  calmly. 

"  Oh,  mah  goodness !"  cried  Miss  Woodburn.  "  Is 
that  the  way  you  awtusts  talk  to  each  othah  ?  Well, 
Ah'm  glad  Ah'm  not  an  awtust — unless  I  could  do  all 
the  talking." 

"  Artists  cannot  tell  a  fib,"  Alma  said,  "  or  even  act 
one,"  and  she  laughed  in  Beaton's  upturned  face. 

He  did  not  unbend  his  dreamy  gaze.  "  You're  quite 
right.  The  suggestions  are  stupid." 

Alma  tiirned  to  Miss  Woodburn :  "  You  hear  ?  Even 
when  we  speak  of  our  own  work." 

"  Ah  nevah  hoad  anything  lahke  it !" 

"  And  the  design  itself  ?"  Beaton  persisted. 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  an  art  editor,"  Alma  answered,  with 
a  laugh  of  exultant  evasion. 

A  tall,  dark,  grave  -  looking  man  of  fifty,  with  a 
swarthy  face  and  iron  -  gray  mustache  and  imperial 
and  goatee,  entered  the  room.  Beaton  knew  the  type; 
he  had  been  through  Virginia  sketching  for  one  of  the 

illustrated  papers,  and  he  had  seen  such  men  in  Rich- 

196 


A    1IAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

inond.  Miss  Woodburn  hardly  needed  to  say,  "  May 
Ah  introduce  you  to  inali  fathaw,  Co'iiel  Woodburn, 
Mr.  Beaton?" 

The  men  shook  hands,  and  Colonel  Woodburn  said, 
in  that  soft,  gentle,  slow  Southern  voice  without  our 
Northern  contractions :  "  I  am  very  glad  to  meet  you, 
sir;  happy  to  make  yo'  acquaintance.  Do  not  move, 
madam,"  he  said  to  Mrs.  Leighton,  who  made  a  depre 
catory  motion  to  let  him  pass  to  the  chair  beyond  her; 
"  I  can  find  my  way."  He  bowed  a  bulk  that  did  not 
lend  itself  readily  to  the  devotion,  and  picked  up  the 
ball  of  yarn  she  had  let  drop  out  of  her  lap  in  half 
rising.  "  Yo'  worsteds,  madam." 

"  Yarn,  yarn,  Colonel  Woodburn !"  Alma  shouted. 
"  You're  quite  incorrigible.  A  spade  is  a  spade !" 

"  But  sometimes  it  is  a  trump,  my  dear  young  lady," 
said  the  Colonel,  with  unabated  gallantry ;  "  and  when 
yo'  mothah  uses  yarn,  it  is  worsteds.  But  I  respect 
worsteds  even  under  the  name  of  yarn :  our  ladies — my 
own  mothah  and  sistahs — had  to  knit  the  socks  we  wore 
— all  we  could  get — in  the  woe." 

"  Yes,  and  aftah  the  \voe,"  his  daughter  put  in. 
"  The  knitting  has  not  stopped  yet  in  some  places. 
Have  you  been  much  in  the  Soath,  Mr.  Beaton  ?" 

Beaton  explained  just  how  much. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  the  Colonel,  "  then  you  have  seen  a 
country  making  gigantic  struggles  to  retrieve  its  losses, 
sir.  The  South  is  advancing  with  enormous  strides,  sir." 

"  Too  fast  for  some  of  us  to  keep  up,"  said  Miss 
Woodburn,  in  an  audible  aside.  "  The  pace  in  Char- 
lottesboag  is  pofectly  killing,  and  we  had  to  drop  oat 
into  a  slow  place  like  New  York." 

"  The  progress  in  the  South  is  material  now,"  said 
the  Colonel ;  "  and  those  of  us  whose  interests  are  in 
another  direction  find  ourselves  —  isolated  —  isolated, 

197 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

sir.  The  intellectual  centres  are  still  in  the  No'th,  sir ; 
the  great  cities  draw  the  mental  activity  of  the  country 
to  them,  sir.  Necessarily  New  York  is  the  metropolis." 

"  Oh,  everything  comes  here,"  said  Beaton,  impatient 
of  the  elder's  ponderosity.  Another  sort  of  man  would 
have  sympathized  with  the  Southerner's  willingness  to 
talk  of  himself,  and  led  him  on  to  speak  of  his  plans 
and  ideals.  But  the  sort  of  man  that  Beaton  was 
could  not  do  this ;  he  put  up  the  dummy  into  the  wrap 
per  he  had  let  drop  on  the  floor  beside  him,  and  tied 
it  round  with  string  while  Colonel  Woodburn  was  talk 
ing.  He  got  to  his  feet  with  the  words  he  spoke  and 
offered  Mrs.  Leighton  his  hand. 

"  Must  you  go  ?"  she  asked,  in  surprise. 

"  I  am  on  my  way  to  a  reception,"  he  said.  She 
had  noticed  that  he  was  in  evening  dress;  and  now 
she  felt  the  vague  hurt  that  people  invited  nowhere  feel 
in  the  presence  of  those  who  are  going  somewhere.  She 
did  not  feel  it  for  herself,  but  for  her  daughter;  and 
she  knew  Alma  would  not  have  let  her  feel  it  if  she 
could  have  prevented  it.  But  Alma  had  left  the  room 
for  a  moment,  and  she  tacitly  indulged  this  sense  of 
injury  in  her  behalf. 

"  Please  say  good  -  night  to  Miss  Leighton  for  me," 
Beaton  continued.  He  bowed  to  Miss  Woodburn, 
"  Good-night,  Miss  Woodburn,"  and  to  her  father, 
bluntly,  "  Good-night." 

"  Good-night,  sir,"  said  the  Colonel,  with  a  sort  of 
severe  suavity. 

"  Oh,  isn't  he  choming !"  Miss  Woodburn  whis 
pered  to  Mrs.  Leighton  when  Beaton  left  the  room. 

Alma  spoke  to  him  in  the  hall  without.  "  You 
knew  that  was  my  design,  Mr.  Beaton.  Why  did  you 
bring  it  ?" 

"  Why  ?"     He  looked  at  her  in  gloomy  hesitation. 

198 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Then  he  said :  "  You  know  why.  I  wished  to  talk  it 
over  with  you,  to  serve  you,  please  you,  get  back  your 
good  opinion.  But  I've  done  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other ;  I've  made  a  mess  of  the  whole  thing." 

Alma  interrupted  him.     "  Has  it  been  accepted  ?" 

"  It  will  be  accepted,  if  you  will  let  it." 

aLet  it?"  she  laughed.  "I  shall  be  delighted." 
She  saw  him  swayed  a  little  toward  her.  "  It's  a 
matter  of  business,  isn't  it  ?" 

"  Purely.     Good-night." 

When  Alma  returned  to  the  room,  Colonel  Wood- 
burn  was  saying  to  Mrs.  Leighton :  "  I  do  not  contend 
that  it  is  impossible,  madam,  but  it  is  very  difficult 
in  a  thoroughly  commercialized  society,  like  yours,  to 
have  the  feelings  of  a  gentleman.  How  can  a  business 
man,  whose  prosperity,  whose  earthly  salvation,  neces 
sarily  lies  in  the  adversity  of  some  one  else,  be  delicate 
and  chivalrous,  or  even  honest?  If  we  could  have  had 
time  to  perfect  our  system  at  the  South,  to  eliminate 
what  was  evil  and  develop  what  was  good  in  it,  we 
should  have  had  a  perfect  system.  But  the  virus  of 
commercialism  was  in  us,  too;  it  forbade  us  to  make 
the  best  of  a  divine  institution,  and  tempted  us  to  make 
the  worst.  Now  the  curse  is  on  the  whole  country ;  the 
dollar  is  the  measure  of  every  value,  the  stamp  of  every 
success.  What  does  not  sell  is  a  failure ;  and  what  sells 
succeeds." 

"  The  hobby  is  oat,  mah  deah,"  said  Miss  Wood- 
burn,  in  an  audible  aside  to  Alma. 

"  Were  you  speaking  of  me,  Colonel  Woodburn  ?" 
Alma  asked. 

"  Surely  not,  my  dear  young  lady." 

"  But  he's  been  saying  that  awtusts  are  just  as  greedy 
aboat  money  as  anybody,"  said  his  daughter. 

"  The  law  of  commercialism  is  on  everything;  in  a 

100 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

commercial  society,"  the  Colonel  explained,  softening 
the  tone  in  which  his  convictions  were  presented.  "  The 
final  reward  of  art  is  money,  and  not  the  pleasure  of 
creating." 

"  Perhaps  they  would  be  willing  to  take  it  all  oat 
in  that  if  othah  people  would  let  them  pay  their  bills 
in  the  pleasure  of  creating,"  his  daughter  teased. 

"  They  are  helpless,  like  all  the  rest,"  said  her  father, 
with  the  same  deference  to  her  as  to  other  women.  "  I 
do  not  blame  them." 

"  Oh,  mah  goodness !  Didn't  you  say,  sir,  that  Mr. 
Beaton  had  bad  manners  ?" 

Alma  relieved  a  confusion  which  he  seemed  to  feel 
in  reference  to  her.  "  Bad  manners  ?  He  has  no  man 
ners  !  That  is,  when  he's  himself.  He  has  pretty  good 
ones  when  he's  somebody  else." 

Miss  Woodburn  began,  "  Oh,  mah—  and  then 
stopped  herself.  Alma's  mother  looked  at  her  with 
distressed  question,  but  the  girl  seemed  perfectly  cool 
and  contented;  and  she  gave  her  mind  provisionally 
to  a  point  suggested  by  Colonel  Woodburn's  talk. 

"  Still,  I  can't  believe  it  was  right  to  hold  people  in 
slavery,  to  whip  them  and  sell  them.  It  never  did  seem 
right  to  me,"  she  added,  in  apology  for  her  extreme 
sentiments  to  the  gentleness  of  her  adversary. 

"  I  quite  agree  with  you,  madam,"  said  the  Colonel. 
"  Those  were  the  abuses  of  the  institution.  But  if  we 
had  not  been  vitiated  on  the  one  hand  and  threatened 
on  the  other  by  the  spirit  of  commercialism  from  the 
North — and  from  Europe,  too — those  abuses  could  have 
been  eliminated,  and  the  institution  developed  in  the 
direction  of  the  mild  patriarchalism  of  the  divine  in 
tention."  The  Colonel  hitched  his  chair,  which  figured 
a  hobby  careering  upon  its  hind-legs,  a  little  toward 
Mrs.  Leighton,  and  the  girls  approached  their  heads 

200 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  began  to  whisper;  they  fell  deferentially  silent 
when  the  Colonel  paused  in  his  argument,  and  went 
on  again  when  he  went  on. 

At  last  they  heard  Mrs.  Leighton  saying,  "  And  have 
you  heard  from  the  publishers  about  your  book  yet?" 

Then  Miss  Woodburn  cut  in,  before  her  father  could 
answer :  "  The  coase  of  commercialism  is  on  that,  too. 
They  are  trahing  to  fahnd  oat  whethah  it  will  pay." 

"  And  they  are  right — quite  right,"  said  the  Colonel. 
"  There  is  no  longer  any  other  criterion ;  and  even  a 
work  that  attacks  the  system  must  be  submitted  to  the 
tests  of  the  system." 

"  The  system  won't  accept  destruction  on  any  othah 
tomes,"  said  Miss  Woodburn,  demurely. 


XI 


AT  the  reception,  where  two  men  in  livery  stood 
aside  to  let  him  pass  up  the  outside  steps  of  the  house, 
and  two  more  helped  him  off  with  his  overcoat  indoors, 
and  a  fifth  miscalled  his  name  into  the  drawing-room, 
the  Syracuse  stone-cutter's  son  met  the  niece  of  Mrs. 
Horn,  and  began  at  once  to  tell  her  about  his  evening 
at  the  Dryfooses'.  He  was  in  very  good  spirits,  for  so 
far  as  he  could  have  been  elated  or  depressed  by  his 
parting  with  Alma  Leighton  he  had  been  elated;  she 
had  not  treated  his  impudence  with  the  contempt  that 
he  felt  it  deserved ;  she  must  still  be  fond  of  him ;  and 
the  warm  sense  of  this,  by  operation  of  an  obscure  but 
well-recognized  law  of  the  masculine  being,  disposed 
him  to  be  rather  fond  of  Miss  Vance.  She  was  a 
slender  girl,  whose  semi-sesthetic  dress  flowed  about  her 
with  an  accentuation  of  her  long  forms,  and  redeemed 
them  from  censure  by  the  very  frankness  with  which 
it  confessed  them;  nobody  could  have  said  that  Mar 
garet  Vance  was  too  tall.  Her  pretty  little  head,  which 
she  had  an  effect  of  choosing  to  have  little  in  the  same 
spirit  of  judicious  defiance,  had  a  good  deal  of  reading 
in  it ;  she  was  proud  to  know  literary  and  artistic  fash 
ions  as  well  as  society  fashions.  She  liked  being  sin 
gled  out  by  an  exterior  distinction  so  obvious  as  Bea 
ton's,  and  she  listened  with  sympathetic  interest  to  his 
account  of  those  people.  He  gave  their  natural  history 
reality  by  drawing  upon  his  own;  he  reconstructed  their 

202 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

plebeian  past  from  the  experiences  of  his  childhood  and 
his  youth  of  the  pre-Parisian  period ;  and  he  had  a 
pang  of  suicidal  joy  in  insulting  their  ignorance  of  the 
world. 

"  What  different  kinds  of  people  you  meet !"  said  the 
girl  at  last,  with  an  envious  sigh.  Her  reading  had 
enlarged  the  bounds  of  her  imagination,  if  not  her 
knowledge;  the  novels  nowadays  dealt  so  much  with 
very  common  people,  and  made  them  seem  so  very 
much  more  worth  while  than  the  people  one  met. 

She  said  something  like  this  to  Beaton.  He  an 
swered  :  "  You  can  meet  the  people  I'm  talking  of 
very  easily,  if  you  want  to  take  the  trouble.  It's  what 
they  came  to  New  York  for.  I  fancy  it's  the  great 
ambition  of  their  lives  to  be  met." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Miss  Vance,  fashionably,  and  looked 
down ;  then  she  looked  up  and  said,  intellectually : 
"  Don't  you  think  it's  a  great  pity  ?  How  much  bet 
ter  for  them  to  have  stayed  where  they  were  and  what 
they  were !" 

"  Then  you  could  never  have  had  any  chance  of 
meeting  them,"  said  Beaton.  "  I  don't  suppose  you 
intend  to  go  out  to  the  gas  country  ?" 

"  No,"  said  Miss  Vance,  amused.  "  Not  that  I 
shouldn't  like  to  go." 

"  What  a  daring  spirit !  You  ought  to  be  on  the  staff 
of  Every  Oilier  Week"  said  Beaton. 

"  The  staff— Every  Other  Week?     What  is  it?" 

"  The  missing  link;  the  long-felt  want  of  a  tie  be 
tween  the  Arts  and  the  Dollars."  Beaton  gave  her  a 
very  picturesque,  a  very  dramatic  sketch  of  the  theory, 
the  purpose,  and  the  personnel  of  the  new  enterprise. 

Miss  Vance  understood  too  little  about  business  of 
any  kind  to  know  how  it  differed  from  other  enter 
prises  of  its  sort.  She  thought  it  was  delightful;  she 

203 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

thought  Beaton  must  be  glad  to  be  part  of  it,  though 
he  had  represented  himself  so  bored,  so  injured,  by 
Fulkerson's  insisting  upon  having  him.  "  And  is  it 
a  secret?  Is  it  a  thing  not  to  be  spoken  of?" 

"  Tutt'  aliro  !  Fulkerson  will  be  enraptured  to  have 
it  spoken  of  in  society.  He  would  pay  any  reasonable 
bill  for  the  advertisement." 

"  What  a  delightful  creature !  Tell  him  it  shall  all 
be  spent  in  charity." 

"  He  would  like  that.  He  would  get  two  paragraphs 
out  of  the  fact,  and  your  name  would  go  into  the  (  Lit 
erary  Notes  '  of  all  the  newspapers." 

"Oh,  but  I  shouldn't  want  my  name  used!"  cried 
the  girl,  half  horrified  into  fancying  the  situation 
real. 

"  Then  you'd  better  not  say  anything  about  Every 
Other  Week.  Fulkerson  is  preternaturally  unscru 
pulous." 

March  began  to  think  so  too,  at  times.  He  was 
perpetually  suggesting  changes  in  the  make-up  of  the 
first  number,  with  a  view  to  its  greater  vividness  of 
effect.  One  day  he  came  and  said :  "  This  thing  isn't 
going  to  have  any  sort  of  get  up  and  howl  about  it, 
unless  you  have  a  paper  in  the  first  number  going  for 
Bevans's  novels.  Better  get  Maxwell  to  do  it." 

"  Why,  I  thought  you  liked  Bevans's  novels  ?" 

"  So  I  did ;  but  where  the  good  of  Every  Other  Week 
is  concerned  I  am  a  Roman  father.  The  popular  gag 
is  to  abuse  Bevans,  and  Maxwell  is  the  man  to  do  it. 
There  hasn't  been  a  new  magazine  started  for  the  last 
three  years  that  hasn't  had  an  article  from  Maxwell  in 
its  first  number  cutting  Bevans  all  to  pieces.  If  peo 
ple  don't  see  it,  they'll  think  Every  Other  Week  is 
some  old  thing." 

March  did  not  know  whether  Fulkerson  was  joking 

204 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

or  not.  He  suggested,  "  Perhaps  they'll  think  it's  an 
old  thing  if  they  do  see  it." 

"  Well,  get  somebody  else,  then ;  or  else  get  Max 
well  to  write  under  an  assumed  name.  Or — I  forgot! 
He'll  be  anonymous  under  our  system,  anyway.  Now 
there  ain't  a  more  popular  racket  for  us  to  work  in  that 
first  number  than  a  good,  swinging  attack  on  Bevans. 
People  read  his  books  and  quarrel  over  'em,  and  the 
critics  are  all  against  him,  and  a  regular  flaying,  with 
salt  and  vinegar  rubbed  in  afterward,  will  tell  more 
with  people  who  like  good  old-fashioned  fiction  than 
anything  else.  I  like  Bevans's  things,  but,  dad  burn 
it!  when  it  comes  to  that  first  number,  I'd  offer  up 
anybody." 

"  What  an  immoral  little  wretch  you  are,  Fulker- 
son !"  said  March,  with  a  laugh. 

Fulkerson  appeared  not  to  be  very  strenuous  about 
the  attack  on  the  novelist.  "  Say !"  he  called  out,  gay- 
ly,  "  what  should  you  think  of  a  paper  defending  the 
late  lamented  system  of  slavery?" 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Fulkerson  ?"  asked  March, 
with  a  puzzled  smile. 

Fulkerson  braced  his  knees  against  his  desk,  and 
pushed  himself  back,  but  kept  his  balance  to  the  eye 
by  canting  his  hat  sharply  forward.  "  There's  an  old 
cock  over  there  at  the  widow's  that's  written  a  book 
to  prove  that  slavery  was  and  is  the  only  solution  of 
the  labor  problem.  He's  a  Southerner." 

"  I  should  imagine,"  March  assented. 

"  He's  got  it  on  the  brain  that  if  the  South  could 
have  been  let  alone  by  the  commercial  spirit  and  the 
pseudo-philanthropy  of  the  North,  it  would  have  work 
ed  out  slavery  into  a  perfectly  ideal  condition  for  the 
laborer,  in  which  he  would  have  been  insured  against 

want,  and  protected  in  all  his  personal  rights  by  the 

205 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

state.  He  read  the  introduction  to  me  last  night.  I 
didn't  catch  on  to  all  the  points — his  daughter's  an 
awfully  pretty  girl,  and  I  was  carrying  that  fact  in 
my  mind  all  the  time,  too,  you  know — but  that's  about 
the  gist  of  it." 

"  Seems  to  regard  it  as  a  lost  opportunity  ?"  said 
March. 

"  Exactly !  What  a  mighty  catchy  title,  heigh  ? 
Look  well  on  the  title-page." 

"  Well  written  ?" 

"  I  reckon  so ;  I  don't  know.  The  Colonel  read  it 
mighty  eloquently." 

"  It  mightn't  be  such  bad  business,"  said  March, 
in  a  muse.  "  Could  you  get  me  a  sight  of  it  without 
committing  yourself?" 

"  If  the  Colonel  hasn't  sent  it  off  to  another  pub 
lisher  this  morning.  He  just  got  it  back  with  thanks 
yesterday.  He  likes  to  keep  it  travelling." 

"  Well,  try  it.  I've  a  notion  it  might  be  a  curious 
thing." 

"  Look  here,  March,"  said  Fulkerson,  with  the  effect 
of  taking  a  fresh  hold ;  "  I  wish  you  could  let  me  have 
one  of  those  New  York  things  of  yours  for  the  first 
number.  After  all,  that's  going  to  be  the  great 
card." 

"  I  couldn't,  Fulkerson ;  I  couldn't,  really.  I  want 
to  philosophize  the  material,  and  I'm  too  new  to  it  all 
yet.  I  don't  want  to  do  merely  superficial  sketches." 

"  Of  course !  Of  course !  I  understand  that.  Well, 
I  don't  want  to  hurry  you.  Seen  that  old  fellow  of 
yours  yet?  I  think  we  ought  to  have  that  translation 
in  the  first  number ;  don't  you  ?  We  want  to  give  'em 
a  notion  of  what  we're  going  to  do  in  that  line." 

"  Yes,"  said  March ;  "  and  I  was  going  out  to  look 
up  Lindau  this  morning.  I've  inquired  at  Maroni's, 

206 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  he  hasn't  been  there  for  several  days.  I've  some 
idea  perhaps  he's  sick.  But  they  gave  nie  his  address, 
and  I'm  going  to  see." 

"  Well,  that's  right.  We  want  the  first  number  to 
be  the  key-note  in  every  way." 

March  shook  his  head.  "  You  can't  make  it  so.  The 
first  number  is  bound  to  be  a  failure  always,  as  far  as 
the  representative  character  goes.  It's  invariably  the 
case.  Look  at  the  first  numbers  of  all  the  things  you've 
seen  started.  They're  experimental,  almost  amateur 
ish,  and  necessarily  so,  not  only  because  the  men  that 
are  making  them  up  are  comparatively  inexperienced 
like  ourselves,  but  because  the  material  sent  them  to 
deal  with  is  more  or  less  consciously  tentative.  People 
send  their  adventurous  things  to  a  new  periodical  be 
cause  the  whole  thing  is  an  adventure.  I've  noticed 
that  quality  in  all  the  volunteer  contributions;  it's  in 
the  articles  that  have  been  done  to  order  even.  No; 
I've  about  made  up  my  mind  that  if  we  can  get  one 
good  striking  paper  into  the  first  number  that  will  take 
people's  minds  off  the  others,  we  shall  be  doing  all  we 
can  possible  hope  for.  I  should  like,"  March  added, 
less  seriously,  "  to  make  up  three  numbers  ahead,  and 
publish  the  third  one  first." 

Fulkerson  dropped  forward  and  struck  his  fist  on 
the  desk.  "  It's  a  first-rate  idea.  Why  not  do  it  2" 

March  laughed.  "  Fulkerson,  I  don't  believe  there's 
any  quackish  thing  you  wouldn't  do  in  this  cause. 
From  time  to  time  I'm  thoroughly  ashamed  of  being 
connected  with  such  a  charlatan." 

Fulkerson  struck  his  hat  sharply  backward.  "  Ah, 
dad  burn  it!  To  give  that  thing  the  right  kind  of 
start  I'd  walk  up  and  down  Broadway  between  two 
boards,  with  the  title-page  of  Every  Other  Week  fac 
similed  on  one  and  my  name  and  address  on  the — " 

207 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

He  jumped  to  his  feet  and  shouted,  "  March,  I'll 
do  it!" 

"What?" 

"  I'll  hire  a  lot  of  fellows  to  make  mud-turtles  of 
themselves,  and  I'll  have  a  lot  of  big  facsimiles  of  the 
title-page,  and  I'll  paint  the  town  red !" 

March  looked  aghast  at  him.  "  Oh,  come,  now, 
Fulkerson !" 

"  I  mean  it.  I  was  in  London  when  a  new  man 
had  taken  hold  of  the  old  CornhAU,  and  they  were  try 
ing  to  boom  it,  and  they  had  a  procession  of  these  mud- 
turtles  that  reached  from  Charing  Cross  to  Temple  Bar. 
'  Cornliill  Magazine.  Sixpence,  ^ot  a  dull  page  in 
it.'  I  said  to  myself  then  that  it  was  the  livest  thing 
I  ever  saw.  I  respected  the  man  that  did  that  thing 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart.  I  wonder  I  ever  forgot 
it.  But  it  shows  what  a  shaky  thing  the  human  mind 
is  at  its  best." 

"  You  infamous  mountebank !"  said  March,  with 
great  amusement  at  Fulkerson's  access ;  "  you  call  that 
congeries  of  advertising  instinct  of  yours  the  human 
mind  at  its  best?  Come,  don't  be  so  diffident,  Fulker 
son.  Well,  I'm  off  to  find  Lindau,  and  when  I  come 
back  I  hope  Mr.  Dryfoos  will  have  you  under  control. 
I  don't  suppose  you'll  be  quite  sane  again  till  after  the 
first  number  is  out.  Perhaps  public  opinion  will  sober 
you  then." 

"  Confound  it,  March !  How  do  you  think  they  will 
take  it?  I  swear  I'm  getting  so  nervous  I  don't  know 
half  the  time  which  end  of  me  is  up.  I  believe  if  we 
don't  get  that  thing  out  by  the  first  of  February  it  '11 
be  the  death  of  me." 

"  Couldn't  Avait  till  Washington's  Birthday  ?  I  was 
thinking  it  would  give  the  day  a  kind  of  distinction, 
and  strike  the  public  imagination,  if— 

208 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  No,  I'll  be  dogged  if  I  could !"  Fulkerson  lapsed 
more  and  more  into  the  parlance  of  his  early  life  in 
this  season  of  strong  excitement.  "  I  believe  if  Beaton 
lags  any  on  the  art  leg  I'll  kill  him." 

"  Well,  I  shouldn't  mind  your  killing  Beaton,"  said 
March,  tranquilly,  as  he  went  out. 

He  went  over  to  Third  Avenue  and  took  the  Elevated 
down  to  Chatham  Square.  He  found  the  variety  of 
people  in  the  car  as  unfailingly  entertaining  as  ever. 
He  rather  preferred  the  East  Side  to  the  West  Side 
lines,  because  they  offered  more  nationalities,  condi 
tions,  and  characters  to  his  inspection.  They  draw  not 
only  from  the  up-town  American  region,  but  from  all 
the  vast  hive  of  populations  swarming  between  them 
and  the  East  River.  He  had  found  that,  according  to 
the  hour,  American  husbands  going  to  and  from  busi 
ness,  and  American  wives  going  to  and  from  shopping, 
prevailed  on  the  Sixth  Avenue  road,  and  that  the  most 
picturesque  admixture  to  these  familiar  aspects  of  hu 
man  nature  were  the  brilliant  eyes  and  complexions  of 
the  American  Hebrews,  who  otherwise  contributed  to 
the  effect  of  well-clad  comfort  and  citizen-self-satisfac 
tion  of  the  crowd.  Now  and  then  he  had  found  him 
self  in  a  car  mostly  filled  with  Neapolitans  from  the 
constructions  far  up  the  line,  where  he  had  read  how 
they  are  worked  and  fed  and  housed  like  beasts ;  and 
listening  to  the  jargon  of  their  unintelligible  dialect, 
he  had  occasion  for  pensive  question  within  himself 
as  to  what  notion  these  poor  animals  formed  of  a  free 
republic  from  their  experience  of  life  under  its  con 
ditions;  and  whether  they  found  them  practically  very 
different  from  those  of  the  immemorial  brigandage  and 
enforced  complicity  with  rapine  under  which  they  had 
been  born.  But,  after  all,  this  was  an  infrequent  ef 
fect,  however  massive,  of  travel  on  the  West  Side, 

209 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

whereas  the  East  offered  him  continual  entertainment 
in  like  sort.  The  sort  was  never  quite  so  squalid.  For 
short  distances  the  lowest  poverty,  the  hardest  pressed 
lahor,  must  walk ;  but  March  never  entered  a  car  with- 
,  out  encountering  some  interesting  shape  of  shahhy  ad 
versity,  which  was  almost  always  adversity  of  foreign 
birth.  New  York  is  still  popularly  supposed  to  be  in 
the  control  of  the  Irish,  but  March  noticed  in  these 
East  Side  travels  of  his  what  must  strike  every  ob 
server  returning  to  the  city  after  a  prolonged  absence : 
the  numerical  subordination  of  the  dominant  race.  If 
they  do  not  outvote  them,  the  people  of  Germanic,  of 
Slavonic,  of  Pelasgic,  of  Mongolian  stock  outnumber 
the  prepotent  Celts ;  and  March  seldom  found  his  specu 
lation  centred  upon  one  of  these.  The  small  eyes,  the 
high  cheeks,  the  broad  noses,  the  puff  lips,  the  bare, 
cue-filleted  skulls,  of  Kussians,  Poles,  Czechs,  Chinese ; 
the  furtive  glitter  of  Italians;  the  blonde  dulness  of 
Germans;  the  cold  quiet  of  Scandinavians — fire  under 
ice — were  aspects  that  he  identified,  and  that  gave  him 
abundant  suggestion  for  the  personal  histories  he  con 
structed,  and  for  the  more  public-spirited  reveries  in 
which  he  dealt  with  the  future  economy  of  our  hetero 
geneous  commonwealth.  It  must  be  owned  that  he  did 
not  take  much  trouble  about  this ;  what  these  poor  peo 
ple  were  thinking,  hoping,  fearing,  enjoying,  suffering; 
just  where  and  how  they  lived ;  who  and  what  they  in 
dividually  were — these  were  the  matters  of  his  waking 
dreams  as  he  stared  hard  at  them,  while  the  train  raced 
farther  into  the  gay  ugliness — the  shapeless,  graceful, 
reckless  picturesqueness  of  the  Bowery. 

There  were  certain  signs,  certain  facades,  certain 
audacities  of  the  prevailing  hideousness  that  always 
amused  him  in  that  uproar  to  the  eye  which  the  strident 
forms  and  colors  made.  He  was  interested  in  the  in- 

210 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

science  with  which  the  railway  had  drawn  its  erasing 
line  across  the  Corinthian  front  of  an  old  theatre,  al 
most  grazing  its  fluted  pillars,  and  flouting  its  dishon 
ored  pediment.  The  colossal  effigies  of  the  fat  women 
and  the  tuft-headed  Circassian  girls  of  cheap  museums ; 
the  vistas  of  shabby  cross  streets ;  the  survival  of  an  old 
hip  -  roofed  house  here  and  there  at  their  angles ;  the 
Swiss  chalet,  histrionic  decorativeness  of  the  stations 
in  prospect  or  retrospect ;  the  vagaries  of  the  lines  that 
narrowed  together  or  stretched  apart  according  to  the 
width  of  the  avenue,  but  always  in  wanton  disregard  of 
the  life  that  dwelt,  and  bought  and  sold,  and  rejoiced 
or  sorrowed,  and  clattered  or  crawled,  around,  below, 
above — were  features  of  the  frantic  panorama  that  per 
petually  touched  his  sense  of  humor  and  moved  his 
sympathy.  Accident  and  then  exigency  seemed  the 
forces  at  work  to  this  extraordinary  effect;  the  play 
of  energies  as  free  and  planless  as  those  that  force  the 
forest  from  the  soil  to  the  sky;  and  then  the  fierce 
struggle  for  survival,  with  the  stronger  life  persisting 
over  the  deformity,  the  mutilation,  the  destruction,  the 
decay  of  the  weaker.  The  whole  at  moments  seemed  to 
him  lawless,  godless;  the  absence  of  intelligent,  com 
prehensive  purpose  in  the  huge  disorder,  and  the  vio 
lent  struggle  to  subordinate  the  result  to  the  greater 
good,  penetrated  with  its  dumb  appeal  the  consciousness 
of  a  man  who  had  always  been  too  self-enwrapped  to 
perceive  the  chaos  to  which  the  individual  selfishness 
must  always  lead. 

But  there  was  still  nothing  definite,  nothing  better 
than  a  vague  discomfort,  however  poignant,  in  his 
half  recognition  of  such  facts;  and  he  descended  the 
station  stairs  at  Chatham  Square  with  a  sense  of  the 
neglected  opportunities  of  painters  in  that  locality.  He 
said  to  himself  that  if  one  of  those  fellows  were  to  see 
15  211 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

in  Naples  that  turmoil  of  cars,  trucks,  and  teams  of 
every  sort,  intershot  with  foot  -  passengers  going  and 
coming  to  and  from  the  crowded  pavements,  under 
the  web  of  the  railroad  tracks  overhead,  and  amid  the 
spectacular  approach  of  the  streets  that  open  into  the 
square,  he  would  have  it  down  in  his  sketch-book  at 
once.  He  decided  simultaneously  that  his  own  local 
studies  must  be  illustrated,  and  that  he  must  come  with 
the  artist  and  show  him  just  which  bits  to  do,  not  know 
ing  that  the  two  arts  can  never  approach  the  same  ma 
terial  from  the  same  point.  He  thought  he  would  par 
ticularly  like  his  illustrator  to  render  the  Dickensy, 
cockneyish  quality  of  the  shabby-genteel  ballad-seller 
of  whom  he  stopped  to  ask  his  way  to  the  street  where 
Lindau  lived,  and  whom  he  instantly  perceived  to  be, 
with  his  stock  in  trade,  the  sufficient  object  of  an  entire 
study  by  himself.  He  had  his  ballads  strung  singly 
upon  a  cord  against  the  house  wall,  and  held  down  in 
piles  on  the  pavement  with  stones  and  blocks  of  wood. 
Their  control  in  this  way  intimated  a  volatility  which 
was  not  perceptible  in  their  sentiment.  They  were 
mostly  tragical  or  doleful :  some  of  them  dealt  with  the 
wrongs  of  the  working-man;  others  appealed  to  a  gay 
experience  of  the  high  seas ;  but  vastly  the  greater  part 
to  memories  and  associations  of  an  Irish  origin ;  some 
still  uttered  the  poetry  of  plantation  life  in  the  artless 
accents  of  the  end  -  man.  Where  they  trusted  them 
selves,  with  syntax  that  yielded  promptly  to  any  ex 
igency  of  rhythmic  art,  to  the  ordinary  American 
speech,  it  was  to  strike  directly  for  the  affections,  to 
celebrate  the  domestic  ties,  and,  above  all,  to  embalm 
the  memories  of  angel  and  martyr  mothers  whose  dis 
sipated  sons  deplored  their  sufferings  too  late.  March 
thought  this  not  at  all  a  bad  thing  in  them ;  he  smiled 

in  patronage  of  their  simple  pathos ;  he  paid  the  tribute 

212 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  a  laugh  when  the  poet  turned,  as  he  sometimes  did, 
from  his  conception  of  angel  and  martyr  motherhood, 
and  portrayed  the  mother  in  her  more  familiar  phases 
of  virtue  and  duty,  with  the  retributive  shingle  or 
slipper  in  her  hand.  He  bought  a  pocketful  of  this 
literature,  popular  in  a  sense  which  the  most  success 
ful  book  can  never  be,  and  enlisted  the  ballad  vendor 
so  deeply  in  the  effort  to  direct  him  to  Lindau's  dwell 
ing  by  the  best  way  that  he  neglected  another  cus 
tomer,  till  a  sarcasm  on  his  absent-mindedness  stung 
him  to  retort,  "  I'm  a-trying  to  answer  a  gentle 
man  a  civil  question;  that's  where  the  absent-minded 
comes  in." 

It  seemed  for  some  reason  to  be  a  day  of  leisure 
with  the  Chinese  dwellers  in  Mott  Street,  which  March 
had  been  advised  to  take  first.  They  stood  about  the 
tops  of  basement  stairs,  and  walked  two  and  two  along 
the  dirty  pavement,  with  their  little  hands  tucked  into 
their  sleeves  across  their  breasts,  aloof  in  immaculate 
cleanliness  from  the  filth  around  them,  and  scrutinizing 
the  scene  with  that  cynical  sneer  of  faint  surprise  to 
which  all  aspects  of  our  civilization  seem  to  move  their 
superiority.  Their  numbers  gave  character  to  the 
street,  and  rendered  not  them,  but  what  was  foreign 
to  them,  strange  there ;  so  that  March  had  a  sense  of 
missionary  quality  in  the  old  Catholic  church,  built 
long  before  their  incursion  was  dreamed  of.  It  seemed 
to  have  come  to  them  there,  and  he  fancied  in  the 
statued  saint  that  looked  down  from  its  facade  some 
thing  not  so  much  tolerant  as  tolerated,  something  pro 
pitiatory,  almost  deprecatory.  It  was  a  fancy,  of 
course;  the  street  was  sufficiently  peopled  with  Chris 
tian  children,  at  any  rate,  swarming  and  shrieking  at 
their  games ;  and  presently  a  Christian  mother  appear 
ed,  pushed  along  by  two  policemen  on  a  handcart,  with 

213 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

a  gelatinous  tremor  over  the  paving  and  a  gelatinous 
jouncing  at  the  curbstones.  She  lay  with  her  face  to 
the  sky,  sending  up  an  inarticulate  lamentation;  but 
the  indifference  of  the  officers  forbade  the  notion  of 
tragedy  in  her  case.  She  was  perhaps  a  local  celebrity ; 
the  children  left  off  their  games,  and  ran  gayly  troop 
ing  after  her;  even  the  young  fellow  and  young  girl 
exchanging  playful  blows  in  a  robust  flirtation  at  the 
corner  of  a  liquor  store  suspended  their  scuffle  with  a 
pleased  interest  as  she  passed.  March  understood  the 
unwillingness  of  the  poor  to  leave  the  worst  conditions 
in  the  city  for  comfort  and  plenty  in  the  country  when 
he  reflected  upon  this  dramatic  incident,  one  of  many 
no  doubt  which  daily  occur  to  entertain  them  in  such 
streets.  A  small  town  could  rarely  offer  anything  com 
parable  to  it,  and  the  country  never.  He  said  that  if 
life  appeared  so  hopeless  to  him  as  it  must  to  the  dwell 
ers  in  that  neighborhood  he  should  not  himself  be  will 
ing  to  quit  its  distractions,  its  alleviations,  for  the  vague 
promise  of  unknown  good  in  the  distance  somewhere. 

But  what  charm  could  such  a  man  as  Lindau  find 
in  such  a  place  ?  It  could  not  be  that  he  lived  there 
because  he  was  too  poor  to  live  elsewhere :  with  a  shut 
ting  of  the  heart,  March  refused  to  believe  this  as  he 
looked  round  on  the  abounding  evidences  of  misery, 
and  guiltily  remembered  his  neglect  of  his  old  friend. 
Lindau  could  probably  find  as  cheap  a  lodging  in  some 
decenter  part  of  the  town ;  and,  in  fact,  there  was  some 
amelioration  of  the  prevailing  squalor  in  the  quieter 
street  which  he  turned  into  from  Mott. 

A  woman  with  a  tied-up  face  of  toothache  opened 
the  door  for  him  when  he  pulled,  with  a  shiver  of 
foreboding,  the  bell-knob,  from  wrhich  a  yard  of  rusty 
crape  dangled.  But  it  was  not  Lindau  who  was  dead, 
for  the  woman  said  he  was  at  home,  and  sent  March 

214 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

stumbling  up  the  four  or  live  dark  flights  of  stairs  that 
led  to  his  tenement.  It  was  quite  at  the  top  of  the 
house,  and  when  March  obeyed  the  German  -  English 
"  Komm !"  that  followed  his  knock,  he  found  himself 
in  a  kitchen  where  a  meagre  breakfast  was  scattered 
in  stale  fragments  on  the  table  before  the  stove.  The 
place  was  bare  and  cold ;  a  half  -  empty  beer  bottle 
scarcely  gave  it  a  convivial  air.  On  the  left  from  this 
kitchen  was  a  room  with  a  bed  in  it,  which  seemed  also 
to  be  a  cobbler's  shop:  on  the  right,  through  a  door 
that  stood  ajar,  came  the  German-English,  voice  again, 
saying  this  time,  "  Hier !" 


XII 


MARCH  pushed  the  door  open  into  a  room  like  that 
on  the  left,  but  with  a  writing-desk  instead  of  a  cob 
bler's  bench,  and  a  bed,  where  Lindau  sat  propped  up, 
with  a  coat  over  his  shoulders  and  a  skull-cap  on  his 
head,  reading  a  book,  from  which  he  lifted  his  eyes 
to  stare  blankly  over  his  spectacles  at  March.  His 
hairy  old  breast  showed  through  the  night-shirt,  which 
gaped  apart;  the  stump  of  his  left  arm  lay  upon  the 
book  to  keep  it  open. 

"  Ah,  my  tear  yo'ng  f riendt !  Passil !  Marge !  Iss 
it  you  ?"  he  called  out,  joyously,  the  next  moment. 

"  Why,  are  you  sick,  Lindau  ?"  March  anxiously 
scanned  his  face  in  taking  his  hand. 

Lindau  laughed.  "  No ;  I'm  all  righdt.  Only  a 
lidtle  lazy,  and  a  lidtle  eggonomigal.  Idt's  jeaper  to 
stay  in  pedt  sometimes  as  to  geep  a  fire  a-goin'  all 
the  time.  Don't  wandt  to  gome  too  hardt  on  the  brafer 
Mann,  you  know: 

"  Braver  Mann,  er  schafft  mir  zu  essen." 

You  remember  ?  Heine  ?  You  readt  Heine  still  ? 
Who  is  your  favorite  boet  now,  Passil  ?  You  write 
some  boetry  yourself  yet  ?  No  ?  Well,  I  am  gladt  to 
zee  you.  Brush  those  baperss  off  of  that  jair.  Well, 
idt  is  goodt  for  zore  eyess.  How'  didt  you  findt  where 
I  lif?" 

216 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  They  told  me  at  Maroni's,"  said  March.  He  tried 
to  keep  his  eyes  on  Lindau's  face,  and  not  see  the  dis 
comfort  of  the  room,  but  he  was  aware  of  the  shabby 
and  frowsy  bedding,  the  odor  of  stale  smoke,  and  the 
pipes  and  tobacco  shreds  mixed  with  the  books  and 
manuscripts  strewn  over  the  leaf  of  the  writing-desk. 
He  laid  down  on  the  mass  the  pile  of  foreign  magazines 
he  had  brought  under  his  arm.  "  They  gave  me  an 
other  address  first." 

"  Yes.  I  have  chust  gome  here,"  said  Lindau.  "  Idt 
is  not  very  cay,  heigh  ?" 

"  It  might  be  gayer,"  March  admitted,  with  a  smile. 
"  Still,"  he  added,  soberly,  "  a  good  many  people  seem 
to  live  in  this  part  of  the  town.  Apparently  they  die 
here,  too,  Lindau.  There  is  crape  on  your  outside  door. 
I  didn't  know  but  it  was  for  you." 

"  Nodt  this  time,"  said  Lindau,  in  the  same  humor. 
"  Berhaps  some  other  time.  We  geep  the  ondertakers 
bretty  pusy  down  here." 

"  Well,"  said  March,  "  imdertakers  must  live,  even 
if  the  rest  of  us  have  to  die  to  let  them."  Lindau 
laughed,  and  March  went  on :  "  But  I'm  glad  it  isn't 
your  funeral,  Lindau.  And  you  say  you're  not  sick, 
and  so  I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  come  to  business." 

"  Pusiness  ?"  Lindau  lifted  his  eyebrows.  "  You 
gome  on  pusiness?" 

"  And  pleasure  combined,"  said  March,  and  he  went 
on  to  explain  the  service  he  desired  at  Lindau's  hands. 

The  old  man  listened  with  serious  attention,  and 
with  assenting  nods  that  culminated  in  a  spoken  ex 
pression  of  his  willingness  to  undertake  the  transla 
tions.  March  waited  with  a  sort  of  mechanical  expecta 
tion  of  his  gratitude  for  the  work  put  in  his  way,  but 
nothing  of  the  kind  came  from  Lindau,  and  March  was 
left  to  say,  "  Well,  everything  is  understood,  then ;  and 

217 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

I  don't  know  that  I  need  add  that  if  you  ever  want 
any  little  advance  on  the  work — " 

"  I  will  ask  you,"  said  Lindau,  quietly,  "  and  I 
thank  you  for  that.  But  I  can  wait;  I  ton't  needt 
any  money  just  at  bresent."  As  if  he  saw  some  appeal 
for  greater  frankness  in  March's  eye,  he  went  on :  "I 
tidn't  gome  here  hegause  I  was  too  boor  to  lif  any 
where  else,  and  I  ton't  stay  in  pedt  begause  I  couldn't 
haf  a  fire  to  geep  warm  if  I  wanted  it.  I'm  nodt  zo 
padt  off  as  Marmontel  when  he  went  to  Paris.  I'm  a 
lidtle  loaxurious,  that  is  all.  If  I  stay  in  pedt  it's  zo 
I  can  fling  money  away  on  somethings  else.  Heigh?" 

"  But  what  are  you  living  here  for,  Lindau  ?"  March 
smiled  at  the  irony  lurking  in  Lindau's  words. 

"  Well,  you  zee,  I  foundt  I  was  begoming  a  lidtle 
too  moch  of  an  aristograt.  I  hadt  a  room  oap  in  Creen- 
vidge  Willage,  among  dose  pig  pugs  over  on  the  West 
Side,  and  I  foundt " — Lindau's  voice  lost  its  jesting 
quality,  and  his  face  darkened — "  that  I  was  beginning 
to  forget  the  boor !" 

"  I  should  have  thought,"  said  March,  with  impartial 
interest,  "  that  you  might  have  seen  poverty  enough, 
now  and  then,  in  Greenwich  Village  to  remind  you  of 
its  existence." 

"  Nodt  like  here,"  said  Lindau.  "  Andt  you  must 
zee  it  all  the  dtime — zee  it,  hear  it,  smell  it,  dtaste  it 
— or  you  forget  it.  That  is  what  I  gome  here  for.  I 
was  begoming  a  ploated  aristograt.  I  thought  I  was 
nodt  like  these  beople  down  here,  when  I  gome  down 
once  to  look  aroundt;  I  thought  I  must  be  somethings 
else,  and  zo  I  zaid  I  better  take  myself  in  time,  and 
I  gome  here  among  my  brothers — the  beccars  and  the 
thiefs!"  A  noise  made  itself  heard  in  the  next  room, 
as  if  the  door  were  furtively  opened,  and  a  faint 
sound  of  tiptoeing  and  of  hands  clawing  on  a  table. 

218 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Thiefs !"  Lindau  repeated,  with  a  shout.  "  Lidtle 
thiefs,  that  gabture  your  breakfast.  Ah!  ha!  ha!" 
A  wild  scurrying  of  feet,  joyous  cries  and  tittering, 
and  a  slamming  door  followed  upon  his  explosion,  and 
he  resumed  in  the  silence :  "  Idt  is  the  children  cot 
pack  from  school.  They  gome  and  steal  what  I  leaf 
there  on  my  daple.  Idt's  one  of  our  lidtle  chokes ;  we 
onderstand  one  another;  that's  all  righdt.  Once  the 
gobbler  in  the  other  room  there  he  used  to  chase  'em ; 
he  couldn't  onderstand  their  lidtle  tricks.  Now  dot 
goppler's  teadt,  and  he  ton't  chase  'em  any  more.  He 
was  a  Bohemian.  Gindt  of  grazy,  I  cuess." 

"  Well,  it's  a  sociable  existence,"  March  suggested. 
"  But  perhaps  if  you  let  them  have  the  things  without 
stealing — " 

"  Oh  no,  no !  Most  nodt  mage  them  too  gonceitedt. 
They  mostn't  go  and  feel  themselfs  petter  than  those 
boor  millionairss  that  hadt  to  steal  their  money." 

March  smiled  indulgently  at  his  old  friend's  violence. 
"  Oh,  there  are  fagots  and  fagots,  you  know,  Lindau ; 
perhaps  not  all  the  millionaires  are  so  guilty." 

"  Let  us  speak  German !"  cried  Lindau,  in  his  own 
tongue,  pushing  his  book  aside,  and  thrusting  his  skull 
cap  back  from  his  forehead.  "  How  much  money  can 
a  man  honestly  earn  without  wronging  or  oppressing 
some  other  man  ?" 

"Well,  if  you'll  let  me  answer  in  English,"  said 
March,  "  I  should  say  about  five  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  I  name  that  figure  because  it's  my  experience 
that  I  never  could  earn  more;  but  the  experience  of 
other  men  may  be  different,  and  if  they  tell  me  they 
can  earn  ten,  or  twenty,  or  fifty  thousand  a  year,  I'm 
not  prepared  to  say  they  can't  do  it." 

Lindau  hardly  waited  for  his  answer.  '''  Not  the 
most  gifted  man  that  ever  lived,  in  the  practice  of  any 

219 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

art  or  science,  and  paid  at  the  highest  rate  that  excep 
tional  genius  could  justly  demand  from  those  who  have 
worked  for  their  money,  could  ever  earn  a  million  dol 
lars.  It  is  the  landlords  and  the  merchant  princes,  the 
railroad  kings  and  the  coal  barons  (the  oppressors  to 
whom  you  instinctively  give  the  titles  of  tyrants) — it  is 
these  that  make  the  millions,  but  no  man  earns  them. 
What  artist,  what  physician,  what  scientist,  what  poet 
was  ever  a  millionaire  ?" 

"  I  can  only  think  of  the  poet  Rogers/'  said  March, 
amused  by  Lindau's  tirade.  "  But  he  was  as  excep 
tional  as  the  other  Rogers,  the  martyr,  who  died  with 
warm  feet."  Lindau  had  apparently  not  understood 
his  joke,  and  he  went  on,  with  the  American  ease  of 
mind  about  everything :  "  But  you  must  allow,  Lindau, 
that  some  of  those  fellows  don't  do  so  badly  with  their 
guilty  gains.  Some  of  them  give  work  to  armies  of 
poor  people — >: 

Lindau  furiously  interrupted :  "  Yes,  when  they  have 
gathered  their  millions  together  from  the  hunger  and 
cold  and  nakedness  and  ruin  and  despair  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  other  men,  they  '  give  work '  to  the 
poor !  They  give  work !  They  allow  their  helpless 
brothers  to  earn  enough  to  keep  life  in  them!  They 
give  work!  Who  is  it  gives  toil,  and  where  will  your 
rich  men  be  when  once  the  poor  shall  refuse  to  give 
toil?  Why,  you  have  come  to  give  m.e  work!" 

March  laughed  outright.  "  Well,  I'm  not  a  million 
aire,  anyway,  Lindau,  and  I  hope  you  won't  make  an 
example  of  me  by  refusing  to  give  toil.  I  dare  say  the 
millionaires  deserve  it,  but  I'd  rather  they  wouldn't 
suffer  in  my  person." 

"  No,"  returned  the  old  man,  mildly  relaxing  the 
fierce  glare  he  had  bent  upon  March.  "  No  man  de 
serves  to  suffer  at  the  hands  of  another.  I  lose  myself 

220 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

when  I  think  of  the  injustice  in  the  world.  But  I  must 
not  forget  that  I  am  like  the  worst  of  them." 

"  You  might  go  up  Fifth  Avenue  and  live  among 
the  rich  awhile,  when  you're  in  danger  of  that/7  sug 
gested  March.  "  At  any  rate,"  he  added,  by  an  im 
pulse  which  he  knew  he  could  not  justify  to  his  wife, 
"  I  wish  you'd  come  some  day  and  lunch  with  their 
emissary.  I've  been  telling  Mrs.  March  about  you,  and 
I  want  her  and  the  children  to  see  you.  Come  over 
with  these  things  and  report."  He  put  his  hand  on 
the  magazines  as  he  rose. 

"  I  will  come,"  said  Lindau,  gently. 

"  Shall  I  give  you  your  book  ?"  asked  March. 

"  No ;  I  gidt  oap  bretty  soon." 

"  And — and — can  you  dress  yourself  ?" 

"  I  vhistle,  and  one  of  those  lidtle  fellowss  comess. 
We  haf  to  dake  gare  of  one  another  in  a  blace  like 
this.  Idt  iss  nodt  like  the  worldt,"  said  Lindau, 
gloomily. 

March  thought  he  ought  to  cheer  him  up.  "  Oh,  it 
isn't  such  a  bad  world,  Lindau !  After  all,  the  average 
of  millionaires  is  small  in  it."  He  added,  "  And  I 
don't  believe  there's  an  American  living  that  could 
look  at  that  arm  of  yours  and  not  wish  to  lend  you  a 
hand  for  the  one  you  gave  us  all."  March  felt  this  to 
be  a  fine  turn,  and  his  voice  trembled  slightly  in  say 
ing  it. 

Lindau  smiled  grimly.  "  You  think  zo  ?  I  wouldn't 
moch  like  to  drost  'em.  I've  driedt  idt  too  often." 
He  began  to  speak  German  again  fiercely :  "  Besides, 
they  owe  me  nothing.  Do  you  think  I  knowingly  gave 
my  hand  to  save  this  oligarchy  of  traders  and  tricksters, 
this  aristocracy  of  railroad  wreckers  and  stock  gamblers 
and  mine-slave  drivers  and  mill-serf  owners?  No;  I 
gave  it  to  the  slave ;  the  slave — ha !  ha  !  ha ! — whom  I 

221 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

helped  to  unshackle  to  the  common  liberty  of  hunger 
and  cold.  And  you  think  I  would  be  the  beneficiary 
of  such  a  state  of  things  ?" 

"  I'm  sorry  to  hear  you  talk  so,  Lindau,"  said  March  ; 
"  very  sorry."  He  stopped  with  a  look  of  pain,  and  rose 
to  go.  Lindau  suddenly  broke  into  a  laugh  and  into 
English. 

"  Oh,  well,  it  is  only  dalk,  Passil,  and  it  toes  me 
goodt.  My  parg  is  worse  than  my  pidte,  I  cuess.  I 
pring  these  things  roundt  bretty  soon.  Good-bye,  Pas 
sil,  my  tear  poy.  Auf  wiedersehen  !" 


XIII 

MARCH  went  away  thinking  of  what  Lindau  had 
said,  but  not  for  the  impersonal  significance  of  his 
words  so  much  as  for  the  light  they  cast  upon  Lindau 
himself.  He  thought  the  words  violent  enough,  but  in 
connection  with  what  he  remembered  of  the  cheery, 
poetic,  hopeful  idealist,  they  were  even  more  curious 
than  lamentable.  In  his  own  life  of  comfortable  reverie 
he  had  never  heard  any  one  talk  so  before,  but  he  had 
read  something  of  the  kind  now  and  then  in  blatant 
labor  newspapers  which  he  had  accidentally  fallen  in 
with,  and  once  at  a  strikers'  meeting  he  had  heard  rich 
people  denounced  with  the  same  frenzy.  He  had  made 
his  own  reflections  upon  the  tastelessness  of  the  rhet 
oric,  and  the  obvious  buncombe  of  the  motive,  and  he 
had  not  taken  the  matter  seriously. 

He  could  not  doubt  Lindau's  sincerity,  and  he  won 
dered  how  he  came  to  that  way  of  thinking.  From  his 
experience  of  himself  he  accounted  for  a  prevailing 
literary  quality  in  it ;  he  decided  it  to  be  from  Lindau's 
reading  and  feeling  rather  than  his  reflection.  That 
was  the  notion  he  formed  of  some  things  he  had  met 
with  in  Ruskin  to  much  the  same  effect;  he  regarded 
them  with  amusement  as  the  chimeras  of  a  rhetorician 
run  away  with  by  his  phrases. 

But  as  to  Lindau,  the  chief  thing  in  his  mind  was 
a  conception  of  the  droll  irony  of  a  situation  in  which 
so  fervid  a  hater  of  millionaires  should  be  working, 
indirectly  at  least,  for  the  prosperity  of  a  man  like 

223 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Dryfoos,  who,  as  March  understood,  had  got  his  money 
together  out  of  every  gambler's  chance  in  speculation, 
and  all  a  schemer's  thrift  from  the  error  and  need  of 
others.  The  situation  was  not  more  incongruous,  how 
ever,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  Every  Other  Week  affair. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  there  were  no  crazy  fortuities 
that  had  not  tended  to  its  existence,  and  as  time  went 
on,  and  the  day  drew  near  for  the  issue  of  the  first 
number,  the  sense  of  this  intensified  till  the  whole  lost 
at  moments  the  quality  of  a  waking  fact,  and  came  to 
be  rather  a  fantastic  fiction  of  sleep. 

Yet  the  heterogeneous  forces  did  co-operate  to  a  real 
ity  which  March  could  not  deny,  at  least  in  their  pres 
ence,  and  the  first  number  was  representative  of  all 
their  nebulous  intentions  in  a  tangible  form.  As  a  re 
sult,  it  was  so  respectable  that  March  began  to  respect 
these  intentions,  began  to  respect  himself  for  combining 
and  embodying  them  in  the  volume  which  appealed  to 
him  with  a  novel  fascination,  when  the  first  advance 
copy  was  laid  upon  his  desk.  Every  detail  of  it  was 
tiresomely  familiar  already,  but  the  whole  had  a  fresh 
interest  now.  He  now  saw  how  extremely  fit  and  ef 
fective  Miss  Leighton's  decorative  design  for  the  cover 
was,  printed  in  black  and  brick-red  on  the  delicate  gray 
tone  of  the  paper.  It  was  at  once  attractive  and  re 
fined,  and  he  credited  Beaton  with  quite  all  he  merited 
in  working  it  over  to  the  actual  shape.  The  touch  and 
the  taste  of  the  art  editor  were  present  throughout  the 
number.  As  Fulkerson  said,  Beaton  had  caught  on 
with  the  delicacy  of  a  humming-bird  and  the  tenacity 
of  a  bulldog  to  the  virtues  of  their  illustrative  process, 
and  had  worked  it  for  all  it  was  worth.  There  were 
seven  papers  in  the  number,  and  a  poem  on  the  last 
page  of  the  cover,  and  he  had  found  some  graphic  com 
ment  for  each.  It  was  a  larger  proportion  than  would 

224 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

afterward  be  allowed,  but  for  once  in  a  way  it  was  al 
lowed.  Eulkerson  said  they  could  not  expect  to  get 
their  money  back  on  that  first  number,  anyway.  Seven 
of  the  illustrations  were  Beaton's ;  two  or  three  he  got 
from  practised  hands;  the  rest  were  the  work  of  un 
known  people  which  he  had  suggested,  and  then  re 
lated  and  adapted  with  unfailing  ingenuity  to  the  dif 
ferent  papers.  He  handled  the  illustrations  with  such 
sympathy  as  not  to  destroy  their  individual  quality, 
and  that  indefinable  charm  which  comes  from  good 
amateur  work  in  whatever  art.  He  rescued  them  from 
their  weaknesses  and  errors,  while  he  left  in  them  the 
evidence  of  the  pleasure  with  which  a  clever  young 
man,  or  a  sensitive  girl,  or  a  refined  woman  had  done 
them.  Inevitably  from  his  manipulation,  however,  the 
art  of  the  number  acquired  homogeneity,  and  there  was 
nothing  casual  in  its  appearance.  The  result,  March 
eagerly  owned,  was  better  than  the  literary  result,  and 
he  foresaw  that  the  number  would  be  sold  and  praised 
chiefly  for  its  pictures.  Yet  he  was  not  ashamed  of  the 
literature,  and  he  indulged  his  admiration  of  it  the 
more  freely  because  he  had  not  only  not  written  it,  but 
in  a  way  had  not  edited  it.  To  be  sure,  he  had  chosen 
all  the  material,  but  he  had  not  voluntarily  put  it  all 
together  for  that  number;  it  had  largely  put  itself  to 
gether,  as  every  number  of  every  magazine  does,  and 
as  it  seems  more  and  more  to  do,  in  the  experience  of 
every  editor.  There  had  to  be,  of  course,  a  story,  and 
then  a  sketch  of  travel.  There  was  a  literary  essay 
and  a  social  essay;  there  was  a  dramatic  trifle,  very 
gay,  very  light;  there  was  a  dashing  criticism  on  the 
new  pictures,  the  new  plays,  the  new  books,  the  new 
fashions;  and  then  there  was  the  translation  of  a  bit 
of  vivid  Russian  realism,  which  the  editor  owed  to 
Lindau's  exploration  of  the  foreign  periodicals  left  with 

225 


A     II  AX  AIM)     or     NEW    FORTUNKS 

him  ;    Lindau  was  himself  a   romanticist  of  the  Victor 
Hugo  sort,  but  ho  said   this   fragment  of   I)o.-.lo\evski 
was  good  of  its  kind.     The  poem  was  a  bit  of  society 
verse,  with  a  backward  look  into  simpler  and  whole 
somer  experiences. 

Fulkerson  was  exf rcmcly  proud  of  the  nuniher;  but 
he  said  it  was  too  good — too  good  from  every  point  of 
view.  The  cover  was  too  good,  and  the  paper  was  too 
good,  and  that  device  of  rough  edges,  which  got  over 
the  objection  to  uncut,  leaves  while  it,  secured  their 
aesthetic  effect,  was  a  thing  that  he  trembled  for,  though 
he  rejoiced  in  it  as  a  stroke  of  the  highest,  genius.  It 
had  come  from  Beaton  at  the  last  moment,  as  a  com 
promise,  when  the  problem  of  the  vulgar  croppiness  of 
cut  leaves  and  the  unpopularity  of  uncut,  leaves  seemed 
to  have  no  solution  but  suicide.  Fulkerson  was  still 
morally  crawling  round  on  his  hands  and  knees,  as  lie 
said,  in  abject  gratitude  at  Beaton's  feet,  though  he 
had  his  qualms,  his  questions;  and  he  declared  that 
iJcatori  was  the  most,  inspired  ass  since  llalaam's. 
"We're  all  asses,  of  course,"  he  admitted,  in  semi 
apology  to  March;  "but  we're  no  such  asses  as  Bea 
ton."  He  said  that  if  the  tasteful  decorativencss  of 
the  thing  did  not  kill  it  with  the  public,  outright,  its 
literary  eXC€ll6nC€  would  give  it  the  finishing  stroke. 
Perhaps  that  might  he  overlooked  in  the.  impression  of 
novelty  which  a  first  number  would  give,  but  it,  must, 
never  happen  again.  "lie  implored  March  to  promise 
that  it  should  never  happen  again;  he  said  their  only 
hope  was  in  the  immediate  cheapening  of  the  whole 
affair.  It  was  bad  enough  to  give  the  public  too  much 
quantity  for  their  money,  but  to  throw  in  such  quality 
as  that,  was  simply  ruinous;  it  must  be  stopped.  These 
were  the  expressions  of  his  intimate  moods;  every  front 

that  he  presented  to  the  public  wore  a  glow  of  lofty,  of 

22(1 


'A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

devout  exultation.  His  pride  in  the  number  gushed 
out  in  fresh  bursts  of  rhetoric  to  every  one  whom  he 
could  get  to  talk  with  him  about  it.  He  worked  the 
personal  kindliness  of  the  press  to  the  utmost.  He  did 
not  mind  making  himself  ridiculous  or  becoming  a  joke 
in  the  good  cause,  as  he  called  it.  He  joined  in  the 
applause  when  a  humorist  at  the  club  feigned  to  drop 
dead  from  his  chair  at  Fulkerson'a  introduction  of  the 
topic,  and  he  went  on  talking  that  first  number  into  the 
surviving  spectators.  He  stood  treat  upon  all  occasions, 
and  he  lunched  attaches  of  the  press  at  all  hours.  He 
especially  befriended  the  correspondents  of  the  news 
papers  of  other  cities,  for,  as  he  explained  to  March, 
those  fellows  could  give  him  any  amount  of  advertis 
ing  simply  as  literary  gossip.  Many  of  the  fellows 
were  ladies  who  could  not  be  so  summarily  asked  out 
to  lunch,  but  Fulkerson's  ingenuity  was  equal  to  every 
exigency,  and  he  contrived  somehow  to  make  each  of 
these  feel  that  she  had  been  possessed  of  exclusive  in 
formation.  There  was  a  moment  when  March  con 
jectured  a  willingness  in  Fulkerson  to  work  Mrs.  March 
into  the  advertising  department,  by  means  of  a  tea  to 
these  ladies  and  their  friends  which  she  should  ad 
minister  in  his  apartment,  but  he  did  not  encourage 
Fulkerson  to  be  explicit,  and  the  moment  passed. 
Afterward,  when  he  told  his  wife  about  it,  he  was 
astonished  to  find  that  she  wrould  not  have  minded  do 
ing  it  for  Fulkerson,  and  he  experienced  another  proof 
of  the  bluntness  of  the  feminine  instincts  in  some  di 
rections,  and  of  the  personal  favor  which  Fulkerson 
seemed  to  enjoy  with  the  whole  sex.  This  alone  was 
enough  to  account  for  the  willingness  of  these  corre 
spondents  to  write  about  the  first  number,  but  March 
accused  him  of  sending  it  to  their  addresses  with  boxes 
of  Jacqueminot  roses  and  Huyler  candy. 
16  227  * 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Fulkerson  let  him  enjoy  his  joke.  He  said  that  lie 
would  do  that  or  anything  else  for  the  good  cause, 
short  of  marrying  the  whole  circle  of  female  corre 
spondents. 

March  was  inclined  to  hope  that  if  the  first  number 
had  been  made  too  good  for  the  country  at  large,  the 
more  enlightened  taste  of  metropolitan  journalism 
would  invite  a  compensating  favor  for  it  in  New 
York.  But  first  Fulkerson  and  then  the  event  proved 
him  wrong.  In  spite  of  the  quality  of  the  magazine, 
and  in  spite  of  the  kindness  which  so  many  newspaper 
men  felt  for  Fulkerson,  the  notices  in  the  New  York 
papers  seemed  grudging  and  provisional  to  the  ardor 
of  the  editor.  A  merit  in  the  work  was  acknowledged, 
and  certain  defects  in  it  for  which  March  had  trembled 
were  ignored ;  but  the  critics  astonished  him  by  select 
ing  for  censure  points  which  he  was  either  proud  of 
or  had  never  noticed;  which  being  now  brought  to  his 
notice  he  still  could  not  feel  were  faults.  He  owned 
to  Fulkerson  that  if  they  had  said  so  and  so  against 
it,  he  could  have  agreed  with  them,  but  that  to  say 
thus  and  so  was  preposterous ;  and  that  if  the  advertis 
ing  had  not  been  adjusted  with  such  generous  recog 
nition  of  the  claims  of  the  different  papers,  he  should 
have  known  the  counting-room  was  at  the  bottom  of 
it.  As  it  was,  he  could,  only  attribute  it  to  perversity 
or  stupidity.  It  was  certainly  stupid  to  condemn  a 
magazine  novelty  like  Every  Oilier  Week  for  being 
novel;  and  to  augur  that  if  it  failed,  it  would  fail 
through  its  departure  from  the  lines  on  which  all  the 
other  prosperous  magazines  had  been  built,  was  in  the 
last  degree  perverse,  and  it  looked  malicious.  The  fact 
that  it  was  neither  exactly  a  book  nor  a  magazine  ought 
to  be  for  it  and  not  against  it,  since  it  would  invade  no 
other  field ;  it  would  prosper  on  no  ground  but  its  own. 

228 


XIV 

THE  more  March  thought  of  the  injustice  of  the 
New  York  press  (which  had  not,  however,  attacked  the 
literary  quality  of  the  number)  the  more  bitterly  he 
resented  it;  and  his  wife's  indignation  superheated  his 
own.  Every  Oilier  Week  had  become  a  very  personal 
affair  with  the  whole  family ;  the  children  shared  their 
parents'  disgust;  Bella  was  outspoken  in  her  denuncia 
tions  of  a  venal  press.  Mrs.  March  saw  nothing  but 
ruin  ahead,  and  began  tacitly  to  plan  a  retreat  to  Bos 
ton,  and  an  establishment  retrenched  to  the  basis  of 
two  thousand  a  year.  She  shed  some  secret  tears  in 
anticipation -of  the  privations  which  this  must  involve; 
but  when  Fulkerson  came  to  see  March  rather  late  the 
night  of  the  publication  day,  she  nobly  told  him  that 
if  the  worst  came  to  the  worst  she  could  only  have  the 
kindliest  feeling  toward  him,  and  should  not  regard 
him  as  in  the  slightest  degree  responsible. 

"  Oh,  hold  on,  hold  on !"  he  protested.  "  You  don't 
think  we've  made  a  failure,  do  you  ?" 

"  Why,  of  course,"  she  faltered,  while  March  re 
mained  gloomily  silent. 

"  Well,  I  guess  we'll  wait  for  the  official  count,  first. 
Even  New  York  hasn't  gone  against  us,  and  I  guess 
there's  a  majority  coming  down  to  Harlem  River  that 
could  sweep  everything  before  it,  anyway." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Fulkerson  ?"  March  demanded, 
sternly. 

229 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh,  nothing !  Only,  the  News  Company  has  or 
dered  ten  thousand  now ;  and  you  know  we  had  to  give 
them  the  first  twenty  on  commission." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  March  repeated ;  his  wife 
held  her  breath. 

"  I  mean  that  the  first  number  is  a  booming  suc 
cess  already,  and  that  it's  going  to  a  hundred  thou 
sand  before  it  stops.  That  unanimity  and  variety  of 
censure  in  the  morning  papers,  combined  with  the  at 
tractiveness  of  the  thing  itself,  has  cleared  every  stand 
in  the  city,  and  now  if  the  favor  of  the  country  press 
doesn't  turn  the  tide  against  us,  our  fortune's  made." 
The  Marches  remained  dumb.  "  Why,  look  here ! 
Didn't  I  tell  you  those  criticisms  would  be  the  mak 
ing  of  us,  when  they  first  began  to  turn  you  blue  this 
morning,  March  ?" 

"  He  came  home  to  lunch  perfectly  sick,"  said  Mrs. 
March";  "and  I  wouldn't  let  him  go  back  again." 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you  so  ?"  Fulkerson  persisted. 

March  could  not  remember  that  he  had,  or  that  he 
had  been  anything  but  incoherently  and  hysterically 
jocose  over  the  papers,  but  he  said,  "  Yes,  yes  —  I 
think  so." 

"  I  knew  it  from  the  start,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  The 
only  other  person  who  took  those  criticisms  in  the  right 
spirit  was  Mother  Dryfoos — I've  just  been  bolstering 
up  the  Dryfoos  family.  She  had  them  read  to  her  by 
Mrs.  Mandel,  and  she  understood  them  to  be  all  the 
most  flattering  prophecies  of  success.  Well,  I  didn't 
read  between  the  lines  to  that  extent,  quite ;  but  I  saw 
that  they  were  going  to  help  us,  if  there  was  anything 
in  us,  more  than  anything  that  could  have  been  done. 
And  there  was  something  in  us!  I  tell  you,  March, 
that  seven-shooting  self-cocking  donkey  of  a  Beaton  has 
given  us  the  greatest  start !  He's  caught  on  like  a  mouse. 

230 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

He's  made  the  thing  awfully  cliic;  it's  jimmy;  there's 
lots  of  dog  about  it.  He's  managed  that  process  so 
that  the  illustrations  look  as  expensive  as  first-class 
wood  -  cuts,  and  they're  cheaper  than  chromos.  He's 
put  style  into  the  whole  thing." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  March,  with  eager  meekness,  "  it's 
Beaton  that's  done  it." 

Fulkerson  read  jealousy  of  Beaton  in  Mrs.  March's 
face.  "  Beaton  has  given  us  the  start  because  his  work 
appeals  to  the  eye.  There's  no  denying  that  the  pict 
ures  have  sold  this  first  number;  but  I  expect  the  lit 
erature  of  this  first  number  to  sell  the  pictures  of  the 
second.  I've  been  reading  it  all  over,  nearly,  since  I 
found  how  the  cat  was  jumping;  I  was  anxious  about 
it,  and  I  tell  you,  old  man,  it's  good.  Yes,  sir !  I  was 
afraid  maybe  you  had  got  it  too  good,  with  that  Boston 
refinement  of  yours;  but  I  reckon  you  haven't.  I'll 
risk  it.  I  don't  see  how  you  got  so  much  variety  into 
so  few  things,  and  all  of  them  palpitant,  all  of  'em  on 
the  keen  jump  with  actuality." 

The  mixture  of  American  slang  with  the  jargon  of 
European  criticism  in  Fulkerson's  talk  made  March 
smile,  but  his  wife  did  not  seem  to  notice  it  in  her 
exultation.  "  That  is  just  what  I  say,"  she  broke  in. 
"  It's  perfectly  wonderful.  I  never  was  anxious  about 
it  a  moment,  except,  as  you  say,  Mr.  Fulkerson,  I  was 
afraid  it  might  be  too  good." 

They  went  on  in  an  antiphony  of  praise  till  March 
said :  "  Really,  I  don't  see  what's  left  me  but  to  strike 
for  higher  wages.  I  perceive  that  I'm  indispensable." 

"  Why,  old  man,  you're  coming  in  on  the  divvy,  you 
know,"  said  Fulkerson. 

They  both  laughed,  and  when  Fulkerson  was  gone, 
Mrs.  March  asked  her  husband  what  a  diwy  was. 

"  It's  a  chicken  before  it's  hatched." 

231 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"No!     Truly?" 

He  explained,  and  she  began  to  spend  the  divvy. 

At  Mrs.  Leighton's  Fulkerson  gave  Alma  all  the 
honor  of  the  success ;  he  told  her  mother  that  the  girl's 
design  for  the  cover  had  sold  every  number,  and  Mrs. 
Leighton  believed  him. 

"  Well,  Ah  think  Ah  maght  have  some  of  the  glory," 
Miss  Woodburn  pouted.  "  Where  am  Ah  comin'  in  ?" 

"  You're  coming  in  on  the  cover  of  the  next  num 
ber,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  We're  going  to  have  your  face 
there ;  Miss  Leighton's  going  to  sketch  it  in."  He  said 
this  reckless  of  the  fact  that  he  had  already  shown  them 
the  design  of  the  second  number,  which  was  Beaton's 
weird  bit  of  gas-country  landscape. 

"  Ah  don't  see  why  you  don't  wrahte  the  fiction  for 
your  magazine,  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  said  the  girl. 

This  served  to  remind  Fulkerson  of  something.  He 
turned  to  her  father.  "  I'll  tell  you  what,  Colonel 
Woodburn,  I  want  Mr.  March  to  see  some  chapters 
of  that  book  of  yours.  I've  been  talking  to  him 
about  it." 

"  I  do  not  think  it  would  add  to  the  popularity  of 
your  periodical,  sir,"  said  the  Colonel,  with  a  stately 
pleasure  in  being  asked.  "  My  views  of  a  civilization 
based  upon  responsible  slavery  would  hardly  be  accept 
able  to  your  commercialized  society." 

"  Well,  not  as  a  practical  thing,  of  course,"  Fulker 
son  admitted.  "  But  as  something  retrospective,  specu 
lative,  I  believe  it  would  make  a  hit.  There's  so  much 
going  on  now  about  social  questions;  I  guess  people 
would  like  to  read  it." 

"  I  do  not  know  that  my  work  is  intended  to  amuse 
people,"  said  the  Colonel,  with  some  state. 

"  Mah  goodness !  Ah  only  wish  it  was,  then,"  said 
his  daughter ;  and  she  added :  "  Yes,  Mr.  Fulkerson,  the 

232 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Colonel  will  be  very  glad  to  submit  portions  of  his 
woak  to  yo'  edito'.  We  want  to  have  some  of  the  honaw. 
Perhaps  we  can  say  we  helped  to  stop  yo'  magazine,  if 
we  didn't  help  to  stawt  it.'7 

They  all  laughed  at  her  boldness,  and  Fulkerson 
said :  "  It  '11  take  a  good  deal  more  than  that  to  stop 
Every  Oilier  Week.  The  Colonel's  whole  book  couldn't 
do  it."  Then  he  looked  unhappy,  for  Colonel  Wood- 
burn  did  not  seem  to  enjoy  his  reassuring  words;  but 
Miss  Woodburn  came  to  his  rescue.  "  You  maght  illus 
trate  it  with  the  po'trait  of  the  awthor's  daughtaw,  if 
it's  too  late  for  the  covah." 

"  Going  to  have  that  in  every  number,  Miss  Wood- 
burn  !"  he  cried. 

"  Oh,  mah  goodness !"  she  said,  with  mock  humility. 

Alma  sat  looking  at  her  piquant  head,  black,  uncon 
sciously  outlined  against  the  lamp,  as  she  sat  working 
by  the  table.  "  Just  keep  still  a  moment !" 

She  got  her  sketch-block  and  pencils,  and  began  to 
draw;  Fulkerson  tilted  himself  forward  and  looked 
over  her  shoulder ;  he  smiled  outwardly ;  inwardly  he 
was  divided  between  admiration  of  Miss  Woodburn's 
arch  beauty  and  appreciation  of  the  skill  which  repro 
duced  it;  at  the  same  time  he  was  trying  to  remember 
whether  March  had  authorized  him  to  go  so  far  as  to 
ask  for  a  sight  of  Colonel  AVoodburn's  manuscript.  He 
felt  that  he  had  trenched  upon  March's  province,  and 
he  framed  one  apology  to  the  editor  for  bringing  him 
the  manuscript,  and  another  to  the  author  for  bringing 
it  back. 

"  Most  Ah  hold  raght  still  like  it  was  a  photograph  ?" 
asked  Miss  Woodburn.  "  Can  Ah  toak  ?" 

"  Talk  all  you  want,"  said  Alma,  squinting  her  eyes. 
"  And  you  needn't  be  either  adamantine,  nor  yet — 
wooden." 

233 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oli,  ho'  very  good  of  von !  Well,  if  Ah  can  toak 
— go  on,  Mr.  Fulkerson  !" 

"  Me  talk  ?  I  can't  breathe  till  this  thing  is  done !" 
sighed  Fulkerson ;  at  that  point  of  his  mental  drama 
the  Colonel  was  behaving  rustily  about  the  return  of 
his  manuscript,  and  he  felt  that  he  was  looking  his  last 
on  Miss  Woodburn's  profile. 

"  Is  she  getting  it  raght  ?"  asked  the  girl. 

"  I  don't  know  which  is  which,"  said  Fulkerson. 

"  Oh,  Ah  hope  Ah  shall !  Ah  don't  want  to  go  round 
feelin'  like  a  sheet  of  papah  half  the  time." 

"  You  could  rattle  on,  just  the  same,"  suggested  Alma. 

"  Oh,  now !  Jost  listen  to  that,  Mr.  Fulkerson.  Do 
you  call  that  any  way  to  toak  to  people  ?" 

"  You  might  know  which  you  were  by  the  color," 
Fulkerson  began,  and  then  he  broke  off  from  the  per 
sonal  consideration  with  a  business  inspiration,  and 
smacked  himself  on  the  knee,  "  We  could  print  it  in 
color!" 

Mrs.  Leighton  gathered  up  her  sewing  and  held  it 
with  both  hands  in  her  lap,  while  she  came  round,  and 
looked  critically  at  the  sketch  and  the  model  over  her 
glasses.  "  It's  very  good,  Alma,"  she  said. 

Colonel  Woodburn  remained  restively  on  his  side  of 
the  table.  "  Of  course,  Mr.  Fulkerson,  you  were  jest 
ing,  sir,  when  you  spoke  of  printing  a  sketch  of  my 
daughter." 

"  Why,  I  don't  know—     If  you  object—" 

"  I  do,  sir — decidedly,"  said  the  Colonel. 

"  Then  that  settles  it,  of  course,"  said  Fulkerson. 
"  I  only  meant—" 

"Indeed  it  doesn't!"  cried  the  girl.  "Who's  to 
know  who  it's  from?  Ah'm  jost  set  on  hiavin'  it 
printed !  Ah'm  going  to  appear  as  the  head  of  Slavery 
— in  opposition  to  the  head  of  Liberty." 

234 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  There'll  be  a  revolution  inside  of  forty-eight  hours, 
and  we'll  have  the  Colonel's  system  going  wherever  a 
copy  of  Every  Other  Week  circulates,"  said  Fulkerson. 

"  This  sketch  belongs  to  me,"  Alma  interposed. 
"  I'm  not  going  to  let  it  be  printed." 

"  Oh,  mah  goodness !"  said  Miss  Woodbnrn,  laugh 
ing  good-humor edly.  "  That's  becose  you  were  brought 
up  to  hate  slavery." 

"  I  should  like  Mr.  Beaton  to  see  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Leighton,  in  a  sort  of  absent  tone.  She  added,  to  Ful- 
kerson :  "  I  rather  expected  he  might  be  in  to-night." 

"  Well,  if  he  comes  we'll  leave  it  to  Beaton,"  Ful- 
kerson  said,  with  relief  in  the  solution,  and  an  anxious 
glance  at  the  Colonel,  across  the  table,  to  see  how  he 
took  that  form  of  the  joke.  Miss  Woodburn  inter 
cepted  his  glance  and  laughed,  and  Fulkerson  laughed, 
too,  but  rather  forlornly. 

Alma  set  her  lips  primly  and  turned  her  head  first 
on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other  to  look  at  the  sketch. 
"  I  don't  think  we'll  leave  it  to  Mr.  Beaton,  even  if  he 
comes." 

"  We  left  the  other  design  for  the  cover  to  Beaton," 
Fulkerson  insinuated.  "  I  guess  you  needn't  be  afraid 
of  him." 

"  Is  it  a  question  of  my  being  afraid  ?"  Alma  asked ; 
she  seemed  coolly  intent  on  her  drawing. 

"  Miss  Leighton  thinks  he  ought  to  be  afraid  of  her," 
Miss  Woodburn  explained. 

"  It's  a  question  of  his  courage,  then  ?"  said  Alma. 

"  Well,  I  don't  think  there  are  many  young  ladies 
that  Beaton's  afraid  of,"  said  Fulkerson,  giving  him 
self  the  respite  of  this  purely  random  remark,  while 
he  interrogated  the  faces  of  Mrs.  Leighton  and  Colonel 
Woodburn  for  some  light  upon  the  tendency  of  their 

daughters'  words. 

235 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

He  was  not  helped  by  Mrs.  Leighton's  saying,  with 
a  certain  anxiety,  "  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Mr. 
Fulkerson." 

"  Well,  you're  as  much  in  the  dark  as  I  am  myself, 
then,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  I  suppose  I  meant  that  Bea 
ton  is  rather — a — favorite,  you  know.  The  women  like 
him." 

Mrs.  Leighton  sighed,  and  Colonel  Woodburn  rose 
and  left  the  room. 


XV 


IN  the  silence  that  followed,  Fulkerson  looked  from 
one  lady  to  the  other  with  dismay.  "  I  seem  to  have 
put  my  foot  in  it,  somehow/'  he  suggested,  and  Miss 
Woodburn  gave  a  cry  of  laughter. 

"  Poo'  Mr.  Fulkerson !  Poo'  Mr.  Fulkerson !  Papa 
thoat  you  wanted  him  to  go.7' 

"  Wanted  him  to  go  ?"  repeated  Fulkerson. 

"  We  always  mention  Mr.  Beaton  when  we  want  to 
get  rid  of  papa." 

"  Well,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  noticed  that  he 
didn't  take  much  interest  in  Beaton,  as  a  general  topic. 
But  I  don't  know  that  I  ever  saw  it  drive  him  out  of 
the  room  before !" 

"  Well,  he  isn't  always  so  bad,"  said  Miss  Wood- 
burn.  "  But  it  was  a  case  of  hate  at  first  sight,  and  it 
seems  to  be  growin'  on  papa." 

"  Well,  I  can  understand  that,"  said  Fulkerson. 
"  The  impulse  to  destroy  Beaton  is  something  that 
everybody  has  to  struggle  against  at  the  start." 

"  I  must  say,  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  said  Mrs.  Leighton, 
in  the  tremor  through  which  she  nerved  herself  to  differ 
openly  with  any  one  she  liked,  "  I  never  had  to  struggle 
with  anything  of  the  kind,  in  regard  to  Mr.  Beaton. 
He  has  always  been  most  respectful  and — and — con 
siderate,  with  me,  whatever  he  has  been  with  others." 

"  Well,  of  course,  Mrs.  Leighton !"  Fulkerson  came 
back  in  a  soothing  tone.  "  But  you  see  you're  the  rule 

237 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

that  proves  the  exception.  I  was  speaking  of  the  way 
men  felt  about  Beaton.  It's  different  with  ladies;  I 
just  said  so." 

"  Is  it  always  different  ?"  Alma  asked,  lifting  her 
head  and  her  hand  from  her  drawing,  and  staring  at 
it  absently. 

Fulkerson  pushed  both  his  hands  through  his  whis 
kers.  "  Look  here !  Look  here !"  he  said.  "  Won't 
somebody  start  some  other  subject  ?  We  haven't  had 
the  weather  up  yet,  have  we  ?  Or  the  opera  ?  What  is 
the  matter  with  a  few  remarks  about  politics  ?" 

"  Why,  Ah  thoat  you  lahked  to  toak  about  the  staff  of 
yo*  magazine,"  said  Miss  Woodburn. 

"Oh,  I  do!"  said  Fulkerson.  "But  not  always 
about  the  same  member  of  it.  He  gets  monotonous, 
when  he  doesn't  get  complicated.  I've  just  come  round 
from  the  Marches',"  he  added,  to  Mrs.  Leighton. 

"  I  suppose  they've  got  thoroughly  settled  in  their 
apartment  by  this  time."  Mrs.  Leighton  said  some 
thing  like  this  whenever  the  Marches  were  mentioned. 
At  the  bottom  of  her  heart  she  had  not  forgiven  them 
for  not  taking  her  rooms ;  she  had  liked  their  looks  so 
much ;  and  she  was  always  hoping  that  they  were  un 
comfortable  or  dissatisfied ;  she  could  not  help  wanting 
them  punished  a  little. 

"  Well,  yes ;  as  much  as  they  ever  will  be,"  Fulker 
son  answered.  "  The  Boston  style  is  pretty  different, 
you  know;  and  the  Marches  are  old-fashioned  folks, 
and  I  reckon  they  never  went  in  much  for  bric-a-brac. 
They've  put  away  nine  or  ten  barrels  of  dragon  candle 
sticks,  but  they  keep  finding  new  ones." 

"  Their  landlady  has  just  joined  our  class,"  said 
Alma.  "  Isn't  her  name  Green  ?  She  happened  to  see 
my  copy  of  Every  Oilier  Week,  and  said  she  knew  the 
editor;  and  told  me." 

238 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Well,  it's  a  little  world,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  You 
seem  to  be  touching  elbows  with  everybody.  Just  think 
of  your  having  had  our  head  translator  for  a  model." 

"  Ah  think  that  your  whole  publication  revolves 
aroand  the  Leighton  family,"  said  Miss  Woodburn. 

'  That's  pretty  much  so,"  Fulkerson  admitted. 
"  Anyhow,  the  publisher  seems  disposed  to  do  so." 

"  Are  you  the  publisher  ?  I  thought  it  was  Mr. 
Dryfoos,"  said  Alma. 

"  It  is." 

"Oh!" 

The  tone  and  the  word  gave  Fulkerson  a  discom 
fort  which  he  promptly  confessed.  "  Missed  again." 

The  girls  laughed,  and  he  regained  something  of  his 
lost  spirits,  and  smiled  upon  their  gayety,  which  lasted 
beyond  any  apparent  reason  for  it. 

Miss  Woodburn  asked,  "  And  is  Mr.  Dryfoos  senio' 
anything  like  ouali  Mr.  Dryfoos  ?" 

"  :NTot  the  least." 

"  But  he's  jost  as  exemplarv  ?" 

"Yes;  in  his  way." 

"  Well,  Ah  wish  Ah  could  see  all  those  pinks  of 
puffection  togethah,  once." 

"  Why,  look  here !  I've  been  thinking  I'd  celebrate 
a  little,  when  the  old  gentleman  gets  back.  Have  a 
little  supper — something  of  that  kind.  How  would 
you  like  to  let  me  have  your  parlors  for  it,  Mrs.  Leigh- 
ton?  You  ladies  could  stand  on  the  stairs,  and  have  a 
peep  at  us,  in  the  bunch." 

"  Oh,  mah !  What  a  privilege !  And  will  Miss  Alma 
be  there,  with  the  othah  contributors?  Ah  shall  jost 
expah  of  envy!" 

"  She  won't  be  there  in  person,"  said  Fulkerson, 
"  but  she'll  be  represented  by  the  head  of  the  art  de 
partment." 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Mali  goodness !  And  who'll  the  head  of  the  pub 
lishing  department  represent  ?" 

"  He  can  represent  you/'  said  Alma. 

"  Well,  Ah  want  to  be  represented,  someho'." 

"  We'll  have  the  banquet  the  night  before  you  appear 
on  the  cover  of  our  fourth  number/'  said  Fulkerson. 

"  Ah  thoat  that  was  doubly  fo'bidden/'  said  Miss 
Woodburn.  '*  By  the  stern  parent  and  the  envious 
awtust." 

"  We'll  get  Beaton  to  get  round  them,  somehow.  I 
guess  we  can  trust  him  to  manage  that." 

Mrs.  Leighton  sighed  her  resentment  of  the  impli 
cation. 

"  I  always  feel  that  Mr.  Beaton  doesn't  do  himself 
justice/'  she  began. 

Fulkerson  could  not  forego  the  chance  of  a  joke. 
"  Well,  maybe  he  would  rather  temper  justice  with 
mercy  in  a  case  like  his."  This  made  both  the  younger 
ladies  laugh.  "  I  judge  this  is  my  chance  to  get  off  with 
my  life/'  he  added,  and  he  rose  as  he  spoke.  "  Mrs. 
Leighton,  I  am  about  the  only  man  of  my  sex  who 
doesn't  thirst  for  Beaton's  blood  most  of  the  time. 
But  I  know  him  and  I  don't.  He's  more  kinds  of  a 
good  fellow  than  people  generally  understand.  He 
doesn't  wear  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve — not  his  ulster 
sleeve,  anyway.  You  can  always  count  me  on  your  side 
when  it's  a  question  of  finding  Beaton  not  guilty  if 
he'll  leave  the  State." 

Alma  set  her  drawing  against  the  wall,  in  rising  to 
say  good-night  to  Fulkerson.  He  bent  over  on  his  stick 
to  look  at  it.  "  Well,  it's  beautiful,"  he  sighed,  with 
unconscious  sincerity. 

Alma  made  him  a  courtesy  of  mock  modesty. 
"  Thanks  to  Miss  Woodburn." 

"  Oh  no !    All  she  had  to  do  was  simply  to  stay  put." 

240 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"Don't  you  think  Ah  might  have  improved  it  if 
Ah  had  looked  better  ?"  the  girl  asked,  gravely. 

"  Oh,  you  couldnt  /"  said  Fulkerson,  and  he  went 
off  triumphant  in  their  applause  and  their  cries  of 
"Which?  which?" 

Mrs.  Leighton  sank  deep  into  an  accusing  gloom 
when  at  last  she  found  herself  alone  with  her  daugh 
ter.  "  I  don't  know  what  you  are  thinking  about,  Alma 
Leighton.  If  you  don't  like  Mr.  Beaton — 

"I  don't."   ' 

"  You  don't  ?  You  know  better  than  that.  You 
know  that  you  did  care  for  him." 

"  Oh !  that's  a  very  different  thing.  That's  a  thing 
that  can  be  got  over." 

"  Got  over !"  repeated  Mrs.  Leighton,  aghast. 

"  Of  course,  it  can !  Don't  be  romantic,  mamma. 
People  get  over  dozens  of  such  fancies.  They  even 
marry  for  love  two  or  three  times." 

"  Never !"  cried  her  mother,  doing  her  best  to  feel 
shocked,  and  at  last  looking  it. 

Her  looking  it  had  no  effect  upon  Alma.  "  You 
can  easily  get  over  caring  for  people;  but  you  can't 
get  over  liking  them — if  you  like  them  because  they 
are  sweet  and  good.  That's  what  lasts.  I  was  a  simple 
goose,  and  he  imposed  upon  me  because  he  was  a 
sophisticated  goose.  Now  the  case  is  reversed." 

"  He  does  care  for  you,  now.  You  can  see  it.  Why 
do  you  encourage  him  to  come  here?" 

"  I  don't,"  said  Alma.  "  I  will  tell  him  to  keep  away 
if  you  like.  But  whether  he  comes  or  goes,  it  will  be 
the  same." 

"  Not  to  him,  Alma !    He  is  in  love  with  you !" 

"  He  has  never  said  so." 

"  And  you  would  really  let  him  say  so,  when  you 

intend  to  refuse  him?" 

241 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

% 

"  I  can't  very  well  refuse  him  till  he  does  say  so." 

This  was  undeniable.  Mrs.  Leighton  could  only  de 
mand,  in  an  awful  tone,  "  May  I  ask  wliy — if  you  cared 
for  him ;  and  I  know  you  care  for  him  still — you.  will 
refuse  him?" 

Alma  laughed.  "  Because — because  I'm  wedded  to 
my  Art,  and  I'm  not  going  to  commit  bigamy,  what 
ever  I  do." 

"Alma!" 

"  Well,  then,  because  I  don't  like  him — that  is,  I 
don't  believe  in  him,  and  don't  trust  him.  He's  fasci 
nating,  but  he's  false  and  he's  fickle.  He  can't  help  it, 
I  dare  say." 

"  And  you  are  perfectly  hard.  Is  it  possible  that  you 
were  actually  pleased  to  have  Mr.  Fulkerson  tease  you 
about  Mr.  Dryfoos  ?" 

"  Oh,  good-night,  now,  mamma !  This  is  becoming 
personal." 


PART   THIRD 


THE  scheme  of  a  banquet  to  celebrate  the  initial 
success  of  Every  Oilier  Week  expanded  in  Fulkerson's 
fancy  into  a  series.  Instead  of  the  publishing  and 
editorial  force,  with  certain  of  the  more  representa 
tive  artists  and  authors  sitting  down  to  a  modest  supper 
in  Mrs.  Leighton's  parlors,  he  conceived  of  a  dinner  at 
Delmonico's,  with  the  principal  literary  and  artistic 
people  throughout  the  country  as  guests,  and  an  inex 
haustible  hospitality  to  reporters  and  correspondents, 
from  whom  paragraphs,  prophetic  and  historic,  would 
flow  weeks  before  and  after  the  first  of  the  series.  He 
said  the  thing  was  a  new  departure  in  magazines;  it 
amounted  to  something  in  literature  as  radical  as  the 
American  Revolution  in  politics :  it  was  the  idea  of  self- 
government  in  the  arts;  and  it  was  this  idea  that  had 
never  yet  been  fully  developed  in  regard  to  it.  That 
was  what  must  be  done  in  the  speeches  at  the  dinner, 
and  the  speeches  must  be  reported.  Then  it  would  go 
like  wildfire.  He  asked  March  whether  he  thought  Mr. 
Depew  could  be  got  to  come ;  Mark  Twain,  he  was 
sure,  wrould  come ;  he  was  a  literary  man.  They  ought 
to  invite  Mr.  Evarts,  and  the  Cardinal  and  the  leading 
Protestant  divines.  His  ambition  stopped  at  nothing, 
nothing  but  the  question  of  expense ;  there  he  had  to 
wait  the  return  of  the  elder  Dryfoos  from  the  West, 
and  Dryfoos  was  still  delayed  at  Moffitt,  and  Fulker- 
son  openly  confessed  that  he  was  afraid  he  would  stay 

245 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

there  till  his  own  enthusiasm  escaped  in  other  activities, 
other  plans. 

Fulkerson  was  as  little  likely  as  possible  to  fall  un 
der  a  superstitious  subjection  to  another  man;  but 
March  could  not  help  seeing  that  in  this  possible  meas 
ure  Dryfoos  was  Fulkerson's  fetish.  He  did  not  revere 
him,  March  decided,  because  it  was  not  in  Fulkerson's 
nature  to  revere  anything;  he  could  like  and  dislike, 
but  he  could  not  respect.  Apparently,  however,  Dry 
foos  daunted  him  somehow;  and  besides  the  homage 
which  those  who  have  not  pay  to  those  who  have,  Ful- 
kerson  rendered  Dryfoos  the  tribute  of  a  feeling  which 
March  could  only  define  as  a  sort  of  bewilderment. 
As  well  as  March  could  make  out,  this  feeling  was 
evoked  by  the  spectacle  of  Dryfoos's  unfailing  luck, 
which  Fulkerson  was  fond  of  dazzling  himself  with. 
It  perfectly  consisted  with  a  keen  sense  of  whatever 
was  sordid  and  selfish  in  a  man  on  whom  his  career 
must  have  had  its  inevitable  effect.  He  liked  to  phi 
losophize  the  case  with  March,  to  recall  Dryfoos  as  he 
was  when  he  first  met  him  still  somewhat  in  the  sap, 
at  Moffitt,  and  to  study  the  processes  by  which  he  im 
agined  him  to  have  dried  into  the  hardened  speculator, 
without  even  the  pretence  to  any  advantage  but  his  own 
in  his  ventures.  He  was  aware  of  painting  the  char 
acter  too  vividly,  and  he  warned  March  not  to  accept 
it  exactly  in  those  tints,  but  to  subdue  them  and  shade 
it  for  himself.  He  said  that  where  his  advantage  was 
not  concerned,  there  was  ever  so  much  good  in  Dry 
foos,  and  that  if  in  some  things  he  had  grown  inflexible, 
he  had  expanded  in  others  to  the  full  measure  of  the 
vast  scale  on  which  he  did  business.  It  had  seemed  a 
little  odd  to  March  that  a  man  should  put  money  into 
such  an  enterprise  as  Every  Oilier  We-ek  and  go  off 
about  other  affairs,  not  only  without  any  sign  of  anx- 

246 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

iety,  but  without  any  sort  of  interest.  But  Fulkerson 
said  that  was  the  splendid  side  of  Dryfoos.  He  had  a 
courage,  a  magnanimity,  that  was  equal  to  the  strain 
of  any  such  uncertainty.  He  had  faced  the  music  once 
for  all,  when  he  asked  Fulkerson  what  the  thing  would 
cost  in  the  different  degrees  of  potential  failure;  and 
then  he  had  gone  off,  leaving  everything  to  Fulkerson 
and  the  younger  Dryfoos,  with  the  instruction  simply 
to  go  ahead  and  not  bother  him  about  it.  Fulkerson 
called  that  pretty  tall  for  an  old  fellow  who  used  to 
bewail  the  want  of  pigs  and  chickens  to  occupy  his 
mind.  He  alleged  it  as  another  proof  of  the  versatility 
of  the  American  mind,  and  of  the  grandeur  of  institu 
tions  and  opportunities  that  let  every  man  grow  to  his 
full  size,  so  that  any  man  in  America  could  run  the 
concern  if  necessary.  He  believed  that  old  Dryfoos 
could  step  into  Bismarck's  shoes  and  run  the  Ger 
man  Empire  at  ten  days'  notice,  or  about  as  long  as 
it  would  take  him  to  go  from  New  York  to  Berlin. 
But  Bismarck  would  not  know  anything  about  Dry- 
foos's  plans  till  Dryfoos  got  ready  to  show  his  hand. 
Fulkerson  himself  did  not  pretend  to  say  what  the  old 
man  had  been  up  to  since  he  went  West.  He  was  at 
Moffitt  first,  and  then  he  was  at  Chicago,  and  then  he 
had  gone  out  to  Denver  to  look  after  some  mines  he 
had  out  there,  and  a  railroad  or  two;  and  now  he  was 
at  Moffitt  again.  He  was  supposed  to  be  closing  up  his 
affairs  there,  but  nobody  could  say. 

Fulkerson  told  March  the  morning  after  Dryfoos 
returned  that  he  had  not  only  not  pulled  out  at  Moffitt, 
but  had  gone  in  deeper,  ten  times  deeper  than  ever. 
He  was  in  a  royal  good-humor,  Fulkerson  reported,  and 
was  going  to  drop  into  the  office  on  his  way  up  from 
the  Street  (March  understood  Wall  Street)  that  after 
noon.  He  was  tickled  to  death  with  Every  Other  Week 

247 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

so  far  as  it  had  gone,  and  was  anxious  to  pay  his  re 
spects  to  the  editor. 

March  accounted  for  some  rhetoric  in  this,  but  let  it 
flatter  him,  and  prepared  himself  for  a  meeting  about 
which  he  could  see  that  Fulkerson  was  only  less  ner 
vous  than  he  had  shown  himself  about  the  public 
reception  of  the  first  number.  It  gave  March  a  dis 
agreeable  feeling  of  being  owned  and  of  being  about 
to  be  inspected  by  his  proprietor ;  but  he  fell  back  upon 
such  independence  as  he  could  find  in  the  thought  of 
those  two  thousand  dollars  of  income  beyond  the  caprice 
of  his  owner,  and  maintained  an  outward  serenity. 

He  was  a  little  ashamed  afterward  of  the  resolution 
it  had  cost  him  to  do  so.  It  was  not  a  question  of  Dry- 
f oos's  physical  presence :  that  was  rather  effective  than 
otherwise,  and  carried  a  suggestion  of  moneyed  indif 
ference  to  convention  in  the  gray  business  suit  of  pro 
vincial  cut,  and  the  low,  wide-brimmed  hat  of  flexible 
black  felt.  He  had  a  stick  with  an  old-fashioned  top 
of  buckhorn  worn  smooth  and  bright  by  the  palm  of 
his  hand,  which  had  not  lost  its  character  in  fat,  and 
which  had  a  history  of  former  work  in  its  enlarged 
knuckles,  though  it  was  now  as  soft  as  March's,  and 
must  once  have  been  small  even  for  a  man  of  Mr.  Dry- 
f oos's  stature ;  he  was  below  the  average  size.  But  what 
struck  March  was  the  fact  that  Dryfoos  Deemed  fur- 
tiyelvjeonscious  of  being  a  coimtry'person,  and  of  being 
aware  that  in  their  meeting  he  was  to  be  tried  by  other 
tests  than  those  which  would  have  availed  him  as  a 
shrewd  speculator.  He  evidently  had  some  curiosity 
about  March,  as  the  first  of  his  kind  whom  he  had  en 
countered  ;  some  such  curiosity  as  the  country  school 
trustee  feels  and  tries  to  hide  in  the  presence  of  the 
new  schoolmaster.  But  the  whole  affair  was,  of  course, 
on  a  higher  plane;  on  one  side  Dryfoos  was  much 

248 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

more  a  man  of  the  world  than  March  was,  and  he 
probably  divined  this  at  once,  and  rested  himself  upon 
the  fact  in  a  measure.  It  seemed  to  be  his  preference 
that  his  son  should  introduce  them,  for  he  came  up 
stairs  with  Conrad,  and  they  had  fairly  made  acquaint 
ance  before  Fulkerson  joined  them. 

Conrad  offered  to  leave  them  at  once,  but  his  father 
made  him  stay.  "  I  reckon  Mr.  March  and  I  haven't 
got  anything  so  private  to  talk  about  that  we  want  to 
keep  it  from  the  other  partners.  Well,  Mr.  March, 
are  you  getting  used  to  New  York  yet  ?  It  takes  a 
little  time." 

"  Oh  yes.  But  not  so  much  time  as  most  places. 
Everybody  belongs  more  or  less  in  New  York;  nobody 
has  to  belong  here  altogether." 

"  Yes,  that  is  so.  You  can  try  it,  and  go  away  if 
you  don't  like  it  a  good  deal  easier  than  you  could 
from  a  smaller  place.  Wouldn't  make  so  much  talk, 
would  it?"  He  glanced  at  March  with  a  jocose  light 
in  his  shrewd  eyes.  "  That  is  the  way  I  feel  about  it 
all  the  time:  just  visiting.  Now,  it  wouldn't  be  that 
way  in  Boston,  I  reckon  ?" 

"  You  couldn't  keep  on  visiting  there  your  whole 
life,"  said  March. 

Dryfoos  laughed,  showing  his  lower  teeth  in  a  way 
that  was  at  once  simple  and  fierce.  "  Mr.  Fulkerson 
didn't  hardly  know  as  he  could  get  you  to  leave.  I  sup 
pose  you  got  used  to  it  there.  I  never  been  in  your 
city." 

"  I  had  got  used  to  it ;  but  it  was  hardly  my  city, 
except  by  marriage.  My  wife's  a  Bostonian." 

"  She's  been  a  little  homesick  here,  then,"  said  Dry 
foos,  with  a  smile  of  the  same  quality  as  his  laugh. 

"  Less  than  I  expected,"  said  March.  "  Of  course, 
she  was  very  much  attached  to  our  old  home." 

249 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  guess  my  wife  won't  ever  get  used  to  N~ew  York," 
said  Dryfoos,  and  he  drew  in  his  lower  lip  with  a  sharp 
sigh.  "But  my  girls  like  it;  they're  young.  You 
never  been  out  our  way  yet,  Mr.  March  ?  Out  West  ?" 

"  Well,  only  for  the  purpose  of  being  born,  and 
brought  up.  I  used  to  live  in  Crawfordsville,  and 
then  Indianapolis." 

"  Indianapolis  is  bound  to  be  a  great  place,"  said 
Dryfoos.  "  I  remember  now,  Mr.  Fulkerson  told  me 
you  was  from  our  State."  He  went  on  to  brag  of  the 
West,  as  if  March  were  an  Easterner  and  had  to  be 
convinced.  "  You  ought  to  see  all  that  country.  It's 
a  great  country." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  March,  "  I  understand  that."  He 
expected  the  praise  of  the  great  West  to  lead  up  to 
some  comment  on  Every  Other  Week;  and  there  was 
abundant  suggestion  of  that  topic  in  the  manuscripts, 
proofs  of  letter  -  press  and  illustrations,  with  advance 
copies  of  the  latest  number  strewn  over  his  table. 

But  Dryfoos  apparently  kept  himself  from  looking 
at  these  things.  He  rolled  his  head  about  on  his  shoul 
ders  to  take  in  the  character  of  the  room,  and  said  to 
his  son,  "  You  didn't  change  the  woodwork,  after  all." 

"  No ;  the  architect  thought  we  had  better  let  it  be, 
unless  we  meant  to  change  the  whole  place.  He  liked 
its  being  old-fashioned." 

"  I  hope  you  feel  comfortable  here,  Mr.  March,"  the 
old  man  said,  bringing  his  eyes  to  bear  upon  him  again 
after  their  tour  of  inspection. 

"  Too  comfortable  for  a  working-man,"  said  March, 
and  he  thought  that  this  remark  must  bring  them  to 
some  talk  about  his  work,  but  the  proprietor  only 
smiled  again. 

"  I  guess  I  sha'n't  lose  much  on  this  house,"  he  re 
turned,  as  if  musing  aloud.  "  This  down-town  prop- 

250 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

erty  is  coining  up.  Business  is  getting  in  on  all  these 
side  streets.  I  thought  I  paid  a  pretty  good  price  for 
it,  too."  He  went  on  to  talk  of  real  estate,  and  March 
began  to  feel  a  certain  resentment  at  his  continued 
avoidance  of  the  only  topic  in  which  they  could  really 
have  a  common  interest.  "  You  live  down  this  way 
somewhere,  don't  you  ?"  the  old  man  concluded. 

"  Yes.  I  wished  to  be  near  my  work."  March  was 
vexed  with  himself  for  having  recurred  to  it ;  but  after 
ward  he  was  not  sure  but  Dryfoos  shared  his  own 
diffidence  in  the  matter,  and  was  waiting  for  him  to 
bring  it  openly  into  the  talk.  At  times  he  seemed  wary 
and  masterful,  and  then  March  felt  that  he  was  being 
examined  and  tested;  at  others  so  simple  that  March 
might  well  have  fancied  that  he  needed  encourage 
ment,  and  desired  it.  He  talked  of  his  wife  and  daugh 
ters  in  a  way  that  invited  March  to  say  friendly  things 
of  his  family,  which  appeared  to  give  the  old  man  first 
an  undue  pleasure  and  then  a  final  distrust.  At  mo 
ments  he  turned,  with  an  effect  of  finding  relief  in  it, 
to  his  son  and  spoke  to  him  across  March  of  matters 
which  he  was  unacquainted  with ;  he  did  not  seem 
aware  that  this  was  rude,  but  the  young  man  must 
have  felt  it  so;  he  always  brought  the  conversation 
back,  and  once  at  some  cost  to  himself  when  his  father 
made  it  personal. 

"  I  want  to  make  a  regular  New  York  business  man 
out  of  that  fellow,"  he  said  to  March,  pointing  at  Con 
rad  with  his  stick.  "  You  s'pose  I'm  ever  going  to 
do  it?" 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  March,  trying  to  fall 
in  with  the  joke.  "  Do  you  mean  nothing  but  a  busi 
ness  man  ?" 

The  old  man  laughed  at  whatever  latent  meaning 
he  fancied  in  this,  and  said :  "  You  think  he  would  be 

251 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

a  little  too  much  for  me  there  ?  Well,  I've  seen  enough 
of  'em  to  know  it  don't  always  take  a  large  pattern  of 
a  man  to  do  a  large  business.  But  I  want  him  to  get 
the  business  training,  and  then  if  he  wants  to  go  into 
something  else  he  knows  what  the  world  is,  anyway. 
Heigh  ?" 

"  Oh  yes  !"  March  assented,  with  some  compassion 
for  the  young  man  reddening  patiently  under  his 
father's  comment. 

Dryfoos  went  on  as  if  his  son  were  not  in  hearing. 
"  Now  that  boy  wanted  to  be  a  preacher.  What  does 
a  preacher  know  about  the  world  he  preaches  against 
when  he's  been  brought  up  a  preacher  ?  He  don't  know 
so  much  as  a  bad  little  boy  in  his  Sunday-school;  he 
knows  about  as  much  as  a  girl.  I  always  told  him, 
You  be  a  man  first,  and  then  you  be  a  preacher,  if  you 
want  to.  Heigh  ?" 

"  Precisely."  March  began  to  feel  some  compassion 
for  himself  in  being  witness  of  the  young  fellow's  dis 
comfort  under  his  father's  homily. 

"  When  we  first  come  to  New  York,  I  told  him,  Now 
here's  your  chance  to  see  the  world  on  a  big  scale.  You 
know  already  what  work  and  saving  and  steady  habits 
and  sense  will  bring  a  man  to  ;  you  don't  want  to  go 
round  among  the  rich  ;  you  want  to  go  among  the  poor, 
and  see  what  laziness  and  drink  and  dishonesty  and 
foolishness  will  bring  men  to.  And  I  guess  he  knows, 
about  as  well  as  anybody  ;  and  if  he  ever  goes  to  preach 
ing  he'll  know  what  he's  preaching  about."  The  old 
man  smiled  his  fierce,  simple  smile,  and  in  his  sharp 
eyes  March  fancied  contempt  of  the  ambition  he  had 
balked  in  his  son.  The  present  scene  must  have  been 
one  of  many  between  them,  ending  in  meek  submission 
on  the  part  of  the  young  man,  whom  his  father,  perhaps 

without  realizing  his  cruelty,  treated  as  a  child.    March 

252 


' 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

took  it  hard  that  he  should  be  made  to  suffer  in  the 
presence  of  a  co-ordinate  power  like  himself,  and  began 
to  dislike  the  old  man  out  of  proportion  to  his  offence, 
which  might  have  been  mere  want  of  taste,  or  an  effect 
of  mere  embarrassment  before  him.  But  evidently, 
whatever  rebellion  his  daughters  had  carried  through 
against  him,  he  had  kept  his  dominion  over  this  gentle 
spirit  unbroken.  March  did  not  choose  to  make  any 
response,  but  to  let  him  continue,  if  he  would,  entirely 
upon  his  own  impulse. 


II 

A  SILENCE  followed,  of  rather  painful  length.  It 
was  broken  by  the  cheery  voice  of  Fulkerson,  sent  be 
fore  him  to  herald  Fulkerson's  cheery  person.  "  Well, 
I  suppose  you've  got  the  glorious  success  of  Every 
Other  Week  down  pretty  cold  in  your  talk  by  this 
time.  I  should  have  been  up  sooner  to  join  you,  but 
I  was  nipping  a  man  for  the  last  page  of  the  cover.  I 
guess  we'll  have  to  let  the  Muse  have  that  for  an  ad 
vertisement  instead  of  a  poem  the  next  time,  March. 
Well,  the  old  gentleman  given  you  boys  your  scold 
ing?"  The  person  of  Fulkerson  had  got  into  the  room 
long  before  he  reached  this  question,  and  had  planted 
itself  astride  a  chair.  Fulkerson  looked  over  the  chair- 
back,  now  at  March,  and  now  at  the  elder  Dryfoos  as 
he  spoke. 

March  answered  him.  "  I  guess  we  must  have  been 
waiting  for  you,  Fulkerson.  At  any  rate,  we  hadn't 
got  to  the  scolding  yet." 

"  Why,  I  didn't  suppose  Mr.  Dryfoos  could  V  held 
in  so  long.  I  understood  he  was  awful  mad  at  the 
way  the  thing  started  off,  and  wanted  to  give  you  a 
piece  of  his  mind,  when  he  got  at  you.  I  inferred  as 
much  from  a  remark  that  he  made."  March  and  Dry 
foos  looked  foolish,  as  men  do  when  made  the  subject 
of  this  sort  of  merry  misrepresentation. 

"  I  reckon  my  scolding  will  keep  awhile  yet,"  said 
the  old  man,  dryly. 

254 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Well,  then,  I  guess  it's  a  good  chance  to  give  Mr. 
Dryfoos  an  idea  of  what  we've  really  done — just  while 
we're  resting,  as  Artemus  Ward  says.  Heigh,  March  ?" 

"  I  will  let  you  blow  the  trumpet,  Fulkerson.  I 
think  it  belongs  strictly  to  the  advertising  department," 
said  March.  He  now  distinctly  resented  the  old  man's 
failure  to  say  anything  to  him  of  the  magazine;  he 
made  his  inference  that  it  was  from  a  suspicion  of  his 
readiness  to  presume  upon  a  recognition  of  his  share  in 
the  success,  and  he  was  determined  to  second  no  sort 
of  appeal  for  it. 

"  The  advertising  department  is  the  heart  and  soul 
of  every  business,"  said  Fulkerson,  hardily,  "  and  I 
like  to  keep  my  hand  in  with  a  little  practise  on  the 
trumpet  in  private.  I  don't  believe  Mr.  Dryfoos  has 
got  any  idea  of  the  extent  of  this  thing.  He's  been  out 
among  those  Rackensackens,  where  we  were  all  born, 
and  he's  read  the  notices  in  their  seven  by  nine  dailies, 
and  he's  seen  the  thing  selling  on  the  cars,  and  he  thinks 
he  appreciates  what's  been  done.  But  I  should  just 
like  to  take  him  round  in  this  little  old  metropolis 
awhile,  and  show  him  Every  Otlwr  Week  on  the  centre- 
tables  of  the  millionaires  —  the  Vanderbilts  and  the 
Astors — and  in  the  homes  of  culture  and  refinement 
everywhere,  and  let  him  judge  for  himself.  It's  the 
talk  of  the  clubs  and  the  dinner-tables;  children  cry 
for  it;  it's  the  Castoria  of  literature  and  the  Pearline 
of  art,  the  Won't-be-happy-till-he-gets-it  of  every  en 
lightened  man,  woman,  and  child  in  this  vast  city.  I 
knew  we  could  capture  the  country ;  but,  my  goodness ! 
I  didn't  expect  to  have  New  York  fall  into  our  hands 
at  a  blow.  But  that's  just  exactly  what  New  York 
has  done.  Every  Other  We-eJc  supplies  the  long-felt 
want  that's  been  grinding  round  in  N"ew  York  and 
keeping  it  awake  nights  ever  since  the  war.  It's  the 

255 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

culmination  of  all  the  high  and  ennobling  ideals  of  the 
past—'7 

"  How  much/'  asked  Dryfoos,  "  do  you  expect  to  get 
out  of  it  the  first  year,  if  it  keeps  the  start  it's  got  ?" 

"  Comes  right  down  to  business,  every  time !"  said 
Fulkerson,  referring  the  characteristic  to  March  with 
a  delighted  glance.  "  Well,  sir,  if  everything  works 
right,  and  we  get  rain  enough  to  fill  up  the  springs, 
and  it  isn't  a  grasshopper  year.  I  expect  to  clear  above 
all  expenses  something  in  the  neighborhood  of  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars." 

"  Humph !  And  you  are  all  going  to  work  a  year 
— editor,  manager,  publisher,  artists,  writers,  printers, 
and  the  rest  of  'em — to  clear  twenty-five  thousand  dol 
lars  ? — I  made  that  much  in  half  a  day  in  Moffitt  once. 
I  see  it  made  in  half  a  minute  in  Wall  Street,  some 
times."  The  old  man  presented  this  aspect  of  the  case 
with  a  good-natured  contempt,  which  included  Fulker 
son  and  his  enthusiasm  in  an  obvious  liking. 

His  son  suggested,  "  But  when  we  make  that  money 
here,  no  one  loses  it." 

"  Can  you  prove  that  ?"  His  father  turned  sharply 
upon  him.  "  Whatever  is  won  is  lost.  It's  all  a  game ; 
it  don't  make  any  difference  what  you  bet  on.  Busi 
ness  is  business,  and  a  business  man  takes  his  risks  with 
his  eyes  open." 

"  Ah,  but  the  glory !"  Fulkerson  insinuated  with 
impudent  persiflage.  "  I  hadn't  got  to  the  glory  yet, 
because  it's  hard  to  estimate  it;  but  put  the  glory  at 
the  lowest  figure,  Mr.  Dryfoos,  and  add  it  to  the  twenty- 
five  thousand,  and  you've  got  an  annual  income  from 
Every  Oilier  Week  of  dollars  enough  to  construct  a 
silver  railroad,  double  -  track,  from  this  office  to  the 
moon.  I  don't  mention  any  of  the  sister  planets  be 
cause  I  like  to  keep  within  bounds." 

256 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Dryfoos  showed  his  lower  teeth  for  pleasure  in 
Fulkerson's  fooling,  and  said,  "  That's  what  I  like 
about  you,  Mr.  Fulkerson — you  always  keep  within 
bounds.7' 

"  Well,  I  ain't  a  shrinking  Boston  violet,  like  March, 
here.  More  sunflower  in  my  style  of  diffidence;  but  I 
am  modest,  I  don't  deny  it,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  And  I 
do  hate  to  have  a  thing  overstated." 

"  And  the  glory — you  do  really  think  there's  some 
thing  in  the  glory  that  pays  ?" 

"  Not  a  doubt  of  it !  I  shouldn't  care  for  the  paltry 
return  in  money,"  said  Fulkerson,  with  a  burlesque 
of  generous  disdain,  "if  it  wasn't  for  the  glory  along 
with  it." 

"  And  how  should  you  feel  about  the  glory  if  there 
was  no  money  along  with  it?" 

"  Well,  sir,  I'm  happy  to  say  we  haven't  come  to 
that  yet." 

"  Now,  Conrad,  here,"  said  the  old  man,  with  a  sort 
of  pathetic  rancor,  "  would  rather  have  the  glory  alone. 
I  believe  he  don't  even  care  much  for  your  kind  of 
glory,  either,  Mr.  Fulkerson." 

Fulkerson  ran  his  little  eyes  curiously  over  Conrad's 
face  and  then  March's,  as  if  searching  for  a  trace  there 
of  something  gone  before  which  would  enable  him  to 
reach  Dryfoos's  whole  meaning.  He  apparently  re 
solved  to  launch  himself  upon  conjecture.  "  Oh,  well, 
we  know  how  Conrad  feels  about  the  things  of  this 
world,  anyway.  I  should  like  to  take  'em  on  the  plane 
of  another  sphere,  too,  sometimes ;  but  I  noticed  a  good 
while  ago  that  this  was  the  world  I  was  born  into,  and 
so  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  do  pretty  much 
what  I  saw  the  rest  of  the  folks  doing  here  below. 
'And  I  can't  see  but  what  Conrad  runs  the  thing  on 
business  principles  in  his  department,  and  I  guess  you'll 

257 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

find  it  so  if  you  look  into  it.  1  consider  that  we're  a 
whole  team  and  big  dog  under  the  wagon  with  you  to 
draw  on  for  supplies,  and  March,  here,  at  the  head  of 
the  literary  business,  and  Conrad  in  the  counting-room, 
and  me  to  do  the  heavy  lying  in  the  advertising  part. 
Oh,  and  Beaton,  of  course,  in  the  art.  I  'most  forgot 
Beaton — Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out." 

Dryfoos  looked  across  at  his  son.  "  Wasn't  that  the 
fellow's  name  that  was  there  last  night?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Conrad. 

The  old  man  rose.  "  Well,  I  reckon  I  got  to  be 
going.  You  ready  to  go  up-town,  Conrad  ?" 

"  Well,  not  quite  yet,  father." 

The  old  man  shook  hands  with.  March,  and  went 
down-stairs,  followed  by  his  son. 

Fulkerson  remained. 

"  He  didn't  jump  at  the  chance  you  gave  him  to  com 
pliment  us  all  round,  Fulkerson,"  said  March,  with  a 
smile  not  wholly  of  pleasure. 

Fulkerson  asked,  with  as  little  joy  in  the  grin  he 
had  on,  "  Didn't  he  say  anything  to  you  before  I 
came  in  ?" 

"  Not  a  word." 

"  Dogged  if  7  know  what  to  make  of  it,"  sighed  Ful 
kerson,  "  but  I  guess  he's  been  having  a  talk  with 
Conrad  that's  soured  on  him.  I  reckon  maybe  he  came 
back  expecting  to  find  that  boy  reconciled  to  the  glory 
of  this  world,  and  Conrad's  showed  himself  just  as 
set  against  it  as  ever." 

"  It  might  have  been  that,"  March  admitted,  pen 
sively.  "  I  fancied  something  of  the  kind  myself  from 
words  the  old  man  let  drop." 

Fulkerson  made  him  explain,  and  then  he  said: 
"  That's  it,  then ;  and  it's  all  right.  Conrad  '11  come 
round  in  time;  and  all  we've  got  to  do  is  to  have  pa- 

258 


A    HAZARD    OE    NEW    EORTUNES 

tience  with  the  old  man  till  he  does.  I  know  he  likes 
you"  Fulkerson  affirmed  this  only  interrogatively, 
arid  looked  so  anxiously  to  March  for  corroboration 
that  March  laughed. 

"  He  dissembled  his  love,"  he  said ;  but  afterward, 
in  describing  to  his  wife  his  interview  with  Mr.  Dry- 
foos,  he  was  less  amused  with  this  fact. 

When  she  saw  that  he  was  a  little  cast  down  by  it, 
she  began  to  encourage  him.  a  He's  just  a  common, 
ignorant  man,  and  probably  didn't  know  how  to  ex 
press  himself.  You  may  be  perfectly  sure  that  he's 
delighted  with  the  success  of  the  magazine,  and  that  he 
understands  as  well  as  you  do  that  he  owes  it  all  to 
you." 

"  Ah,  I'm  not  so  sure.  I  don't  believe  a  man's  any 
better  for  having  made  money  so  easily  and  rapidly 
as  Dryfoos  has  done,  and  I  doubt  if  he's  any  wiser. 
I  don't  know  just  the  point  he's  reached  in  his  evolu 
tion  from  grub  to  beetle,  but  I  do  know  that  so  far  as 
it's  gone  the  process  must  have  involved  a  bewildering 
change  of  ideals  and  criterions.  I  guess  he's  come  to 
despise  a  great  many  things  that  he  once  respected, 
and  that  intellectual  ability  is  among  them — what  we 
call  intellectual  ability.  He  must  have  undergone  a 
moral  deterioration,  an  atrophy  of  the  generous  in 
stincts,  and  I  don't  see  why  it  shouldn't  have  reached 
his  mental  make-up.  He  has  sharpened,  but  he  has 
narrowed;  his  sagacity  has  turned  into  suspicion,  his 
caution  to  meanness,  his  courage  to  ferocity.  That's 
the  way  I  philosophize  a  man  of  Dryfoos's  experience, 
and  I  am  not  very  proud  when  I  realize  that  such  a 
man  and  his  experience  are  the  ideal  and  ambition  of 
most  Americans.  I  rather  think  they  came  pretty  near 
being  mine,  once." 

"  No,  dear,  they  never  did,"  his  wife  protested. 
18  259 


A    HAZAED    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Well,  they're  not  likely  to  be  in  the  future.  Tho 
Dryfoos  feature  of  Every  Other  Week  is  thoroughly 
distasteful  to  me." 

"  Why,  but  he  hasn't  really  got  anything  to  do  with 
it,  has  he,  beyond  furnishing  the  money?" 

"  That's  the  impression  that  Fulkerson  has  allowed 
us  to  get.  But  the  man  that  holds  the  purse  holds  the 
reins.  He  may  let  us  guide  the  horse,  but  when  he 
likes  he  can  drive.  If  we  don't  like  his  driving,  then 
we  can  get  down." 

Mrs.  March  was  less  interested  in  this  figure  of 
speech  than  in  the  personal  aspects  involved.  "  Then 
you  think  Mr.  Fulkerson  has  deceived  you?" 

"  Oh  no !"  said  her  husband,  laughing.  "  But  I 
think  he  has  deceived  himself,  perhaps." 

"  How  ?"  she  pursued. 

"  He  may  have  thought  he  was  using  Dryfoos,  when 
Dryfoos  was  using  him,  and  he  may  have  supposed  he 
was  not  afraid  of  him  when  he  was  very  much  so.  His 
courage  hadn't  been  put  to  the  test,  and  courage  is  a 
matter  of  proof,  like  proficiency  on  the  fiddle,  you 
know :  you  can't  tell  whether  you've  got  it  till  you  try." 

"  Nonsense !  Do  you  mean  that  he  would  ever  sacri 
fice  you  to  Mr.  Dryfoos  ?" 

"  I  hope  he  may  not  be  tempted.  But  I'd  rather  be 
taking  the  chances  with  Fulkerson  alone  than  with 
Fulkerson  and  Dryfoos  to  back  him.  Dryfoos  seems, 
somehow,  to  take  the  poetry  and  the  pleasure  out  of  the 
thing." 

Mrs.  March  was  a  long  time  silent.  Then  she  began, 
"  Well,  my  dear,  I  never  wanted  to  come  to  New 
York—" 

"  Neither  did  I,"  March  promptly  put  in. 

"  But  now  that  we're  here,"  she  went  on,  "  I'm  not 
going  to  have  you  letting  every  little  thing  discourage 

260 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

you.  I  don't  see  what  there  was  in  Mr.  Dryfoos's 
manner  to  give  you  any  anxiety.  He's  just  a  common, 
stupid,  inarticulate  country  person,  and  he  didn't  know 
how  to  express  himself,  as  I  said  in  the  beginning,  and 
that's  the  reason  he  didn't  say  anything." 

"  Well,  I  don't  deny  you're  right  about  it." 

"  It's  dreadful,"  his  wife  continued,  "  to  be  mixed 
up  with  such  a  man  and  his  family,  but  I  don't  be 
lieve  he'll  ever  meddle  with  your  management,  and,  till 
he  does,  all  you  need  do  is  to  have  as  little  to  do  with 
him  as  possible,  and  go  quietly  on  your  own  way." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  go  on  quietly  enough,"  said  March. 
"  I  hope  I  sha'n't  begin  going  stealthily." 

"  Well,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  just  let  me 
know  when  you're  tempted  to  do  that.  If  ever  you 
sacrifice  the  smallest  grain  of  your  honesty  or  your 
self-respect  to  Mr.  Dryfoos,  or  anybody  else,  I  will 
simply  renounce  you." 

"  In  view  of  that  I'm  rather  glad  the  management 
of  Every  Oilier  Week  involves  tastes  and  not  convic 
tions,"  said  March, 


Ill 


THAT  night  Dryfoos  was  wakened  from  his  after- 
dinner  nap  by  the  sound  of  gay  talk  and  nervous 
giggling  in  the  drawing-room.  The  talk,  which  was 
Christine's,  and  the  giggling,  which  was  Mela's,  were 
intershot  with  the  heavier  tones  of  a  man's  voice;  and 
Dryfoos  lay  awhile  on  the  leathern  lounge  in  his  li 
brary,  trying  to  make  out  whether  he  knew  the  voice. 
His  wife  sat  in  a  deep  chair  before  the  fire,  with  her 
eyes  on  his  face,  waiting  for  him  to  wake. 

"  Who  is  that  out  there  2"  he  asked,  without  opening 
his  eyes. 

"  Indeed,  indeed,  .1  don't  know,  Jacob,"  his  wife  an 
swered.  "  I  reckon  it's  just  some  visitor  of  the  girls'." 

"  Was  I  snoring  ?" 

"  Not  a  bit.  You  was  sleeping  as  quiet !  I  did  hate 
to  have  'em  wake  you,  and  I  wTas  just  goin'  out  to  shoo 
them.  They've  been  playin'  something,  and  that  made 
them  laugh." 

"  I  didn't  know  but  I  had  snored,"  said  the  old  man, 
sitting  up. 

"  No,"  said  his  wife.  Then  she  asked,  wistfully, 
''  Was  you  out  at  the  old  place,  Jacob  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Did  it  look  natural  ?" 

'  Yes ;  mostly.  They're  sinking  the  wells  down  in 
the  woods  pasture." 

"  And — the  children's  graves  ?" 

^ 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  They  haven't  touched  that  part.  But  I  reckon 
we  got  to  have  'em  moved  to  the  cemetery.  I  bought 
a  lot." 

The  old  woman  began  softly  to  weep.  "  It  does  seem 
too  hard  that  they  can't  be  let  to  rest  in  peace,  pore 
little  things.  I  wanted  you  and  me  to  lay  there,  too, 
when  our  time  come,  Jacob.  Just  there,  back  o'  the 
beehives  and  iindcr  them  shoomakes — my,  I  can  see 
the  very  place!  And  I  don't  believe  I'll  ever  feel  at 
home  anywheres  else.  I  woon't  know  where  I  am  when 
the  trumpet  sounds.  I  have  to  think  before  I  can  tell 
where  the  east  is  in  New  York;  and  what  if  I  should 
git  faced  the  wrong  way  when  I  raise  ?  Jacob,  I  won 
der  you  could  sell  it!"  Her  head  shook,  and  the  fire 
light  shone  on  her  tears  as  she  searched  the  folds  of 
her  dress  for  her  pocket. 

A  peal  of  laughter  came  from  the  drawing-room, 
and  then  the  sound  of  chords  struck  on  the  piano. 

"  Hush  !  Don't  you  cry,  'Liz'beth  !"  said  Dryfoos. 
"  Here ;  take  my  handkerchief.  I've  got  a  nice  lot  in 
the  cemetery,  and  I'm  goin'  to  have  a  monument,  with 
two  lambs  on  it — like  the  one  you  always  liked  so  much. 
It  ain't  the  fashion,  any  more,  to  have  family  buryin'- 
grounds;  they're  collectin'  'em  into  the  cemeteries,  all 
round." 

"  I  reckon  I  got  to  bear  it,"  said  his  wife,  muffling 
her  face  in  his  handkerchief.  "  And  I  suppose  the 
Lord  kin  find  me,  wherever  I  am.  But  I  always  did 
want  to  lay  just  there.  You  mind  how  we  used  to 
go  out  and  set  there,  after  milkin',  and  watch  the  sun 
go  down,  and  talk  about  where  their  angels  was,  and 
try  to  figger  it  out  ?" 
'"I  remember,  'Liz'beth." 

The  man's  voice  in  the  drawing-room  sang  a  snatch 
of  French  song,  insolent,  mocking,  salient;  and  then 

263 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

( In-istine's  attempted  the  same  strain,  and  another  cry 
of  laughter  from  Mela  followed. 

"  Well,  I  always  did  expect  to  lay  there.  But  I 
reckon  it's  all  right.  It  won't  be  a  great  while,  now, 
anyway.  Jacob,  I  don't  believe  I'm  a-goin'  to  live  very 
long.  I  know  it  don't  agree  with  me  here." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  it  does,  'Liz'beth.  You're  just  a 
little  pulled  down  with  the  weather.  It's  coming 
spring,  and  you  feel  it ;  but  the  doctor  says  you're 
all  right.  I  stopped  in,  on  the  way  up,  and  he 
says  so." 

"  I  reckon  he  don't  know  everything,"  the  old  woman 
persisted.  "  I've  been  runnin'  dowrn  ever  since  we  left 
Moffitt,  and  I  didn't  feel  any  too  well  there,  even.  It's 
a  very  strange  thing,  Jacob,  that  the  richer  you  git,  the 
less  you  ain't  able  to  .stay  where  you  want  to,  dead  or 
alive." 

"  It's  for  the  children  we  do  it,"  said  Dryfoos.  "  We 
got  to  give  them  their  chance  in  the  world." 

"  Oh,  the  world !  They  ought  to  bear  the  yoke  in 
their  youth,  like  we  done.  I  know  it's  what  Coonrod 
would  like  to  do." 

Dryfoos  got  upon  his  feet.  "  If  Coonrod  '11  mind 
his  own  business,  and  do  what  I  want  him  to,  he'll 
have  yoke  enough  to  bear."  He  moved  from  his  wife, 
without  further  effort  to  comfort  her,  and  pottered 
heavily  out  into  the  dining  -  room.  Beyond  its  ob 
scurity  stretched  the  glitter  of  the  deep  drawing-room. 
His  feet,  in  their  broad,  flat  slippers,  made  no  sound 
on  the  dense  carpet,  and  he  came  unseen  upon  the  little 
group  there  near  the  piano.  Mela  perched  upon  the 
stool  with  her  back  to  the  keys,  and  Beaton  bent  over 
Christine,  who  sat  with  a  banjo  in  her  lap,  letting  him 
take  her  hands  and  put  them  in  the  right  place  on  the 
instrument.  Her  face  was  radiant  with  happiness,  and 

264 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Mela  was  watching  her  with  foolish,  unselfish  pleasure 
in  her  bliss. 

There  was  nothing  wrong  in  the  affair  to  a  man  of 
Dryfoos's  traditions  and  perceptions,  and  if  it  had  heen 
at  home  in  the  farm  sitting-room,  or  even  in  his  parlor 
at  Moffitt,  he  would  not  have  minded  a  young  man's 
placing  his  daughter's  hands  on  a  banjo,  or  even  hold 
ing  them  there;  it  would  have  seemed  a  proper  at 
tention  from  him  if  he  was  courting  her.  But  here,  in 
such  a  house  as  this,  with  the  daughter  of  a  man  who 
had  made  as  much  money  as  he  had,  he  did  not  know 
but  it  was  a  liberty.  He  felt  the  angry  doubt  of  it 
which  beset  him  in  regard  to  so  many  experiences  of 
his  changed  life;  he  wanted  to  show  his  sense  of  it,  if 
it  was  a  liberty,  but  he  did  not  know  how,  and  he  did 
not  know  that  it  was  so.  Besides,  he  could  not  help 
a  touch  of  the  pleasure  in  Christine's  happiness  which 
Mela  showed;  and  he  would  have  gone  back  to  the  li 
brary,  if  he  could,  without  being  discovered. 

But  Beaton  had  seen  him,  and  Dryfoos,  with  a  non 
chalant  nod  to  the  young  man,  came  forward.  "  What 
you  got  there,  Christine  ?" 

"  A  banjo,"  said  the  girl,  blushing  in  her  father's 
presence. 

Mela  gurgled.  "  Mr.  Beaton  is  learnun'  her  the  first 
position." 

Beaton  was  not  embarrassed.  He  was  in  evening 
dress,  and  his  face,  pointed  with  its  brown  beard, 
showed  extremely  handsome  above  the  expanse  of  his 
broad,  white  shirt-front.  He  gave  back  as  nonchalant 
a  nod  as  he  had  got,  and,  without  further  greeting  to 
Dryfoos,  he  said  to  Christine :  "  No,  no.  You  must 
keep  your  hand  and  arm  so."  He  held  them  in  posi 
tion.  "  There !  N"ow  strike  with  your  right  hand. 

See?" 

265 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  don't  believe  I  can  ever  learn,"  said  the  girl,  with 
a  fond  upward  look  at  him. 

"  Oh  yes,  you  can,"  said  Beaton. 

They  both  ignored  Dryfoos  in  the  little  play  of  pro 
tests  which  followed,  and  he  said,  half  jocosely,  half 
suspiciously,  "  And  is  the  banjo  the  fashion,  now  ?" 
He  remembered  it  as  the  emblem  of  low-down  show 
business,  and  associated  it  with  end-men  and  blackened 
faces  and  grotesque  shirt-collars. 

"  It's  all  the  rage,"  Mela  shouted,  in  answer  for  all. 
"  Everybody  plays  it.  Mr.  Beaton  borrowed  this  from 
a  lady  friend  of  his." 

"  Humph !  Pity  I  got  you  a  piano,  then,"  said  Dry 
foos.  "  A  banjo  would  have  been  cheaper." 

Beaton  so  far  admitted  him  to  the  conversation  as  to 
seem  reminded  of  the  piano  by  his  mentioning  it.  He 
said  to  Mela,  "  Oh,  won't  you  just  strike  those  chords  ?" 
and  as  Mela  wheeled  about  and  beat  the  keys  he  took 
the  banjo  from  Christine  and  sat  down  with  it.  "  This 
way !"  He  strummed  it,  and  murmured  the  tune  Dry 
foos  had  heard  him  singing  from  the  library,  while  he 
kept  his  beautiful  eyes  floating  on  Christine's.  "  You 
try.  that,  now;  it's  very  simple." 

"  Where  is  Mrs.  Mandel  ?"  Dryfoos  demanded,  try 
ing  to  assert  himself. 

Neither  of  the  girls  seemed  to  have  heard  him  at 
first  in  the  chatter  they  broke  into  over  what  Beaton 
proposed.  Then  Mela  said,  absently,  "  Oh,  she  had  to 
go  out  to  see  one  of  her  friends  that's  sick,"  and  she 
struck  the  piano  keys.  "  Come ;  try  it,  Chris !" 

Dryfoos  turned  about  unheeded  and  went  back  to 
the  library.  He  would  have  liked  to  put  Beaton  out 
of  his  house,  and  in  his  heart  he  burned  against  him 
as  a  contumacious  hand;  he  would  have  liked  to  dis 
charge  him  from  the  art  department  of  Every  Other 

266 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Week  at  once.  But  he  was  aware  of  not  having  treated 
Beaton  with  much  ceremony,  and  if  the  young  man  had 
returned  his  behavior  in  kind,  with  an  electrical  re 
sponse  to  his  own  feeling,  had  he  any  right  to  complain  ? 
After  all,  there  was  no  harm  in  his  teaching  Christine 
the  banjo. 

His  wife  still  sat  looking  into  the  fire.  "  I  can't 
see,"  she  said,  "  as  we've  got  a  bit  more  comfort  of 
our  lives,  Jacob,  because  we've  got  such  piles  and  piles 
of  money.  I  wisht  to  gracious  we  was  back  on  the 
farm  this  minute.  I  wisht  you  had  held  out  ag'inst 
the  childern  about  sellin'  it;  'twould  'a'  bin  the  best 
thing  fur  'em,  I  say.  I  believe  in  my  soul  they'll  git 
spoiled  here  in  New  York.  I  kin  see  a  change  in  'em 
a'ready — in  the  girls." 

Dryfoos  stretched  himself  on  the  lounge  again.  "  I 
can't  see  as  Coonrod  is  much  comfort,  either.  Why 
ain't  he  here  with  his  sisters?  What  does  all  that  work 
of  his  on  the  East  Side  amount  to  ?  It  seems  as  if  he 
done  it  to  cross  me,  as  much  as  anything."  Dryfoos 
complained  to  his  wife  on  the  basis  of  mere  affectional 
habit,  which  in  married  life  often  survives  the  sense  of 
intellectual  equality.  He  did  not  expect  her  to  reason 
with  him,  but  there  was  help  in  her  listening,  and 
though  she  could  only  soothe  his  fretfulness  with  soft 
answers  which  were  often  wide  of  the  purpose,  he  still 
went  to  her  for  solace.  "Here,  I've  gone  into  this 
newspaper  business,  or  whatever  it  is,  on  his  account, 
and  he  don't  seem  any  more  satisfied  than  ever.  I  can 
see  he  hain't  got  his  heart  in  it," 

"  The  pore  boy  tries ;  I  know  he  does,  Jacob ;  and 
he  wants  to  please  you.  But  he  give  up  a  good  deal 
when  he  give  up  bein'  a  preacher;  I  s'pose  we  ought 
to  remember  that." 

"  A  preacher !"  sneered  Dryfoos.     "  I  reckon  bein'  a 

267 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

preacher  wouldn't  satisfy  him  now.  He  had  the  im 
pudence  to  tell  me  this  afternoon  that  he  would  like 
to  be  a  priest;  and  he  threw  it  up  to  me  that  he  never 
could  be  because  I'd  kept  him  from  studyin'." 

"  He  don't  mean  a  Catholic  priest — not  a  Roman  one, 
Jacob/'  the  old  woman  explained,  wistfully.  "  He's 
told  me  all  about  it.  They  ain't  the  kind  o'  Catholics 
we  been  used  to ;  some  sort  of  'Piscopalians ;  and  they 
do  a  heap  o'  good  amongst  the  poor  folks  over  there. 
He  says  we  ain't  got  any  idea  how  folks  lives  in  them 
tenement-houses,  hundreds  of  7em  in  one  house,  and 
whole  families  in  a  room;  and  it  burns  in  his  heart 
to  help  ?em  like  them  Fathers,  as  he  calls  'em,  that 
gives  their  lives  to  it.  He  can't  be  a  Father,  he  says, 
because  he  can't  git  the  eddication  now;  but  he  can 
be  a  Brother;  and  I  can't  find  a  word  to  say  ag'inst  it, 
when  it  gits  to  talkin',  Jacob." 

"  I  ain't  saying  anything  against  his  priests,  'Liz- 
7beth,"  said  Dryfoos.  "  They're  all  well  enough  in 
their  way;  they've  given  up  their  lives  to  it,  and 
it's  a  matter  of  business  with  them,  like  any  other. 
But  what  I'm  talking  about  now  is  Coonrod.  I  don't 
object  to  his  doin'  all  the  charity  he  wants  to,  and  the 
Lord  knows  I've  never  been  stingy  with  him  about  it. 
He  might  have  all  the  money  he  wants,  to  give  round 
any  way  he  pleases." 

"  That's  what  I  told  him  once,  but  he  says  money 
ain't  the  thing — or  not  the  only  thing  you  got  to  give 
to  them  poor  folks.  You  got  to  give  your  time  and 
your  knowledge  and  your  love  —  I  don't  know  what 
all — you  got  to  give  yourself,  if  you  expect  to  help 
'em.  That's  what  Coonrod  says." 

"  Well,  I  can  tell  him  that  charity  begins  at  home," 
said  Dryfoos,  sitting  up  in  his  impatience.  "  And 
he'd  better  give  himself  to  us  a  little — to  his  old  father 

268 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  mother.  And  his  sisters.  What's  he  doin'  goin' 
off  there  to  his  meetings,  and  I  don't  know  what  all, 
an'  leavin'  them  here  alone  ?" 

"  Why,  ain't  Mr.  Beaton  with  'em  ?"  asked  the  old 
woman.  "  I  thought  I  heared  his  voice." 

"  Mr.  Beaton !  Of  course  he  is !  And  who's  Mr. 
Beaton,  anyway  ?" 

"  Why,  ain't  he  one  of  the  men  in  Coonrod's  office  ? 
I  thought  I  heared— 

"  Yes,  he  is !  But  who  is  he  ?  What's  he  doing 
round  here?  Is  he  makin'  up  to  Christine?" 

"  I  reckon  he  is.  From  Mely's  talk,  she's  about  crazy 
over  the  fellow.  Don't  you  like  him,  Jacob  ?" 

"  I  don't  know  him,  or  what  he  is.  He  hasn't  got 
any  manners.  Who  brought  him  here  ?  How'd  he 
come  to  come,  in  the  first  place?" 

"  Mr.  Fulkerson  brung  him,  I  believe,"  said  the  old 
woman,  patiently. 

"  Fulkerson !"  Dryfoos  snorted.  "  Where's  Mrs. 
Mandel,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  He  brought  her, 
too.  Does  she  go  traipsin'  off  this  way  every  even- 
ing?" 

"  "No,  she  seems  to  be  here  pretty  regular  most  o' 
the  time.  I  don't  know  how  we  could  ever  git  along 
without  her,  Jacob;  she  seems  to  know  just  what  to 
do,  and  the  girls  would  be  ten  times  as  outbreakin' 
without  her.  I  hope  you  ain't  thinkin'  o'  turnin'  her 
off,  Jacob  ?" 

Dryfoos  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  answer  such 
a  question.  "  It's  all  Fulkerson,  Fulkerson,  Fulker 
son.  It  seems  to  me  that  Fulkerson  about  runs  this 
family.  He  brought  Mrs.  Mandel,  and  he  brought 
that  Beaton,  and  he  brought  that  Boston  fellow!  I 
guess  I  give  him  a  dose,  though ;  and  I'll  learn  Fulker 
son  that  he  can't  have  everything  his  own  way.  I  don't 

269 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

want  anybody  to  help  me  spend  my  money.  I  made 
it,  and  I  can  manage  it.  I  giiess  Mr.  Fulkerson  can 
bear  a  little  watching  now.  He's  been  travelling  pretty 
free,  and  he's  got  the  notion  he's  driving,  maybe.  I'm 
agoing  to  look  after  that  book  a  little  myself." 

"  You'll  kill  yourself,  Jacob,"  said  his  wife,  "  tryin' 
to  do  so  many  things.  And  what  is  it  all  fur  ?  I  don't 
see  as  we're  better  off,  any,  for  all  the  money.  It's 
just  as  much  care  as  it  used  to  be  when  we  was  all  there 
on  the  farm  together.  I  wisht  we  could  go  back,  Ja — 

"  We  can't  go  back !"  shouted  the  old  man,  fiercely. 
"  There's  no  farm  any  more  to  go  back  to.  The  fields 
is  full  of  gas-wells  and  oil-wells  and  hell-holes  gen 
erally;  the  house  is  tore  down,  and  the  barn's  goin' — " 
_,lLThe  barn!"  gasped  the  old  woman.  "  Oh,  my!" 

"  If  I  was  to  give  all  I'm  worth  this  minute,  we 
couldn't  go  back  to  the  farm,  any  more  than  them  girls 
in  there  could  go  back  and  be  little  children.  I  don't 
say  we're  any  better  off,  for  the  money.  I've  got  more 
of  it  now  than  I  ever  had;  and  there's  no  end  to  the 
luck;  it  pours  in.  But  I  feel  like  I  was  tied  hand  and 
foot.  I  don't  know  which  way  to  move ;  I  don't  know 
what's  best  to  do  about  anything.  The  money  don't 
seem  to  buy  anything  but  more  and  more  care  and 
trouble.  We  got  a  big  house  that  we  ain't  at  home 
in ;  and  we  got  a  lot  of  hired  girls  round  under  our 
feet  that  hinder  and  don't  help.  Our  children  don't 
mind  us,  and  we  got  no  friends  or  neighbors.  But  it 
had  to  be.  I  couldn't  help  but  sell  the  farm,  and  we' 
can't  go  back  to  it,  for  it  ain't  there.  So  don't  you  say 
anything  more  about  it,  'Liz'beth." 

aPore  Jacob!"  said  his  wife.  "Well,  I  woon't, 
dear." 


IV 


IT  was  clear  to  Beaton  that  Dryfoos  distrusted  him ; 
and,  the  fact  heightened  his  pleasure  in  Christine's 
liking  for  him.  He  was  as  sure  of  this  as  he  was  of 
the  other,  though  he  was  not  so  sure  of  any  reason 
for  his  pleasure  in  it.  She  had  her  charm ;  the  charm 
of  wildness  to  which  a  certain  wildness  in  himself  re 
sponded;  and  there  were  times  when  his  fancy  con 
trived  a  common  future  for  them,  which  would  have 
a  prosperity  forced  from  the  old  fellow's  love  of  the 
girl.  Beaton  liked  the  idea  of  this  compulsion  better 
than  he  liked  the  idea  of  the  money;  there  was  some 
thing  a  little  repulsive  in  that;  he  imagined  himself 
rejecting  it;  he  almost  wished  he  was  enough  in  love 
with  the  girl  to  marry  her  without  it;  that  would  he 
fine.  He  was  taken  with  her  in  a  certain  measure,  in 
a  certain  way;  the  question  was  in  what  measure,  in 
what  way. 

It  was  partly  to  escape  from  this  question  that  he 
hurried  down  -  town,  and  decided  to  spend  with  the 
Leightons  the  hour  remaining  on  his  hands  before  it 
was  time  to  go  to  the  reception  for  which  he  was 
dressed.  It  seemed  to  him  important  that  he  should 
see  Alma  Leighton.  After  all,  it  was  her  charm  that 
was  most  abiding  with  him ;  perhaps  it  was  to  be  final. 
He  found  himself  very  happy  in  his  present  relations 
with  her.  She  had  dropped  that  barrier  of  pretences 
and  ironical  surprise.  It  seemed  to  him  that  they  had 

271 


A    IIAZAKD    OF    NEW    POKTUNES 

gone  back  to  the  old  ground  of  common  artistic  inter 
est  which  he  had  found  so  pleasant  the  summer  before. 
Apparently  she  and  her  mother  had  both  forgiven  his 
neglect  of  them  in  the  first  months  of  their  stay  in  New 
York;  he  was  sure  that  Mrs.  Leighton  liked  him  as 
wrell  as  ever,  and,  if  there  was  still  something  a  little 
provisional  in  Alma's  manner  at  times,  it  was  some 
thing  that  piqued  more  than  it  discouraged ;  it  made 
him  curious,  not  anxious. 

He  found  the  young  ladies  with  Fulkerson  when  he 
rang.  He  seemed  to  be  amusing  them  both,  and  they 
were  both  amused  beyond  the  merit  of  so  small  a  pleas 
antry,  Beaton  thought,  when  Fulkerson  said :  "  Intro 
duce  myself,  Mr.  Beaton:  Mr.  Fulkerson  of  Every 
Oilier  Week.  Think  I've  met  you  at  our  place."  The 
girls  laughed,  and  Alma  explained  that  her  mother  was 
not  very  well,  and  would  be  sorry  not  to  see  him.  Then 
she  turned,  as  he  felt,  perversely,  and  went  on  talking 
with  Fulkerson  and  left  him  to  Miss  Woodburn. 

She  finally  recognized  his  disappointment:  "Ah 
don't  often  get  a  chance  at  you,  Mr.  Beaton,  and  Ah'm 
just  goin'  to  toak  yo'  to  death.  Yo'  have  been  Soath 
yo'self,  and  yo'  know  ho'  we  do  toak." 

"  I've  survived  to  say  yes,"  Beaton  admitted. 

"  Oh,  now,  do  you  think  we  toak  so  much  mo'  than 
you  do  in  the  No'th  ?"  the  young  lady  deprecated. 

"  I  don't  know.  I  only  know  you  can't  talk  too  much 
for  me.  I  should  like  to  hear  you  say  Soaili  and  Jioase 
and  aboat  for  the  rest  of  my  life." 

"  That's  what  Ah  call  raght  personal,  Mr.  Beaton. 
Now  Ah'm  goin'  to  be  personal,  too."  Miss  Wood- 
burn  flung  out  over  her  lap  the  square  of  cloth  she  was 
embroidering,  and  asked  him :  "  Don't  you  think  that's 
beautiful  ?  Now,  as  an  awtust — a  great  awtust  ?" 

"  As  a  great  awtust,  yes,"  said  Beaton,  mimicking 
"  272 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

her  accent.  "  If  I  were  less  than  great  I  might  have 
something  to  say  about  the  arrangement  of  colors. 
You're  as  bold  and  original  as  Xature." 

"  Really  '\  Oh,  now,  do  tell  me  yo'  f  avo'ite  colo', 
Mr.  Beaton." 

"  My  favorite  color  ?  Bless  my  soul,  why  should  I 
prefer  any  ?  Is  blue  good,  or  red  wicked  ?  Do  people 
have  favorite  colors  ?"  Beaton  found  himself  suddenly 
interested. 

"  Of  co'se  they  do,"  answered  the  girl.  "  Don't 
awtusts  ?" 

"  I  never  heard  of  one  that  had — consciously." 

"  Is  it  possible  ?  I  supposed  they  all  had.  Now 
mcik  favo'ite  colo'  is  gawnet.  Don't  you  think  it's  a 
pretty  colo'  ?" 

"  It  depends  upon  how  it's  used.  Do  you  mean  in 
neckties  ?"  Beaton  stole  a  glance  at  the  one  Fulkerson 
was  wearing. 

Miss  Woodburn  laughed  with  her  face  bowed  upon 
her  wrist.  "  Ah  do  think  you  gentlemen  in  the  No'th 
awe  ten  taluns  as  lahvely  as  the  ladies." 

"Strange,"  said  Beaton.  "  In  the  South— Soath, 
excuse  me !  —  I  made  the  observation  that  the  ladies 
were  ten  times  as  lively  as  the  gentlemen.  What  is 
that  you're  working  ?" 

"  This  ?"  Miss  Woodburn  gave  it  another  flirt,  and 
looked  at  it  with  a  glance  of  dawning  recognition. 
"  Oh,  this  is  a  table  -  covah.  Wouldn't  you  lahke  to 
see  where  it's  to  go?" 

"  Why,  certainly." 

"  Weil,  if  you'll  be  raght  good  I'll  let  yo'  give  me 
some  professional  advass  about  putting  something  in 
the  corners  or  not,  when  you  have  seen  it  on  the  table." 

She  rose  and  led  the  way  into  the  other  room.  Bea 
ton  knew  she  wanted  to  talk  with  him  about  something 

273 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

else;  but  he  waited  patiently  to  let  her  play  her  comedy 
out.  She  spread  the  cover  on  the  table,  and  he  advised 
her,  as  he  saw  she  wished,  against  putting  anything  in 
the  corners;  just  run  a  line  of  her  stitch  around  the 
edge,  he  said. 

"  Mr.  Fulkerson  and  Ah,  why,  we've  been  having 
a  regular  f  aght  aboat  it,"  she  commented.  "  But  we 
both  agreed,  fahnally,  to  leave  it  to  you;  Mr.  Fulker 
son  said  you'd  be  sure  to  be  raght.  Ah'm  so  glad  you 
took  mah  sahde.  But  he's  a  great  admahrer  of  yours, 
Mr.  Beaton,"  she  concluded,  demurely,  suggestively. 

"  Is  he  ?  Well,  I'm  a  great  admirer  of  Fulkerson," 
said  Beaton,  with  a  capricious  willingness  to  humor 
her  wish  to  talk  about  Fulkerson.  "  He's  a  capital 
fellow;  generous,  magnanimous,  with  quite  an  ideal  of 
friendship  and  an  eye  single  to  the  main  chance  all 
the  time.  He  would  advertise  Every  Oilier  Week  on 
his  family  vault," 

Miss  Woodburn  laughed,  and  said  she  should  tell 
him  what  Beaton  had  said. 

"  Do.  But  he's  used  to  defamation  from  me,  and 
he'll  think  you're  joking." 

"  Ah  suppose,"  said  Miss  Woodburn,  "  that  he's 
quahte  the  tahpe  of  a  New  York  business  man."  She 
added,  as  if  it  followed  logically,  "  He's  so  different 
from  what  I  thought  a  New  York  business  man 
would  be." 

"  It's  your  Virginia  tradition  to  despise  business," 
said  Beaton,  rudely. 

Miss  Woodburn  laughed  again.  ff  DespaJise  it  ? 
Mah  goodness !  we  want  to  get  into  it  and  '  woak  it 
fo'  all  it's  wo'th,'  as  Mr.  Fulkerson  says.  That  tradi 
tion  is  all  past.  You  don't  know  what  the  Soath  is 
now.  Ah  suppose  mah  fathaw  despahses  business,  but 
he's  a  tradition  himself,  as  Ah  tell  him."  Beaton 

274 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

would  have  enjoyed  joining  the  young  lady  in  any 
thing  she  might  be  going  to  say  in  derogation  of  her 
father,  but  he  restrained  himself,  and  she  went  on  more 
and  more  as  if  she  wished  to  account  for  her  father's 
habitual  hauteur  with  Beaton,  if  not  to  excuse  it.  "  Ah 
tell  him  he  don't  understand  the  rising  generation.  He 
was  brought  up  in  the  old  school,  and  he  thinks  we're 
all  just  lahke  he  was  when  he  was  young,  with  all  tl  !<>><• 
ahdeals  of  chivalry  and  family ;  but,  mah  goodness !  it's 
money  that  cyoants  no'adays  in  the  Soath,  just  lahke 
it  does  everywhere  else.  Ah  suppose,  if  we  could  have 
slavery  back  in  the  fawm  mah  fathaw  thinks  it  could 
have  been  brought  up  to,  when  the  commercial  spirit 
wouldn't  let  it  alone,  it  would  be  the  best  thing;  but 
we  can't  have  it  back,  and  Ah  tell  him  we  had  better 
have  the  commercial  spirit  as  the  next  best  thing." 

Miss  Woodburn  went  on,  with  sufficient  loyalty  and 
piety,  to  expose  the  difference  of  her  own  and  her 
father's  ideals,  but  with  what  Beaton  thought  less 
reference  to  his  own  unsympathetic  attention  than  to 
a  knowledge  finally  of  the  personnel  and  materiel  of 
Every  Other  Week  and  Mr.  Fulkerson's  relation  to  the 
enterprise.  "  You  most  excuse  my  asking  so  many 
questions,  Mr.  Beaton.  You  know  it's  all  mah  doing 
that  we  awe  heah  in  2Tew  York.  Ah  just  told  mah 
fathaw  that  if  he  was  evah  goin'  to  do  anything  with 
his  wrahtings,  he  had  got  to  come  No'th,  and  Ah  made 
him  come.  Ah  believe  he'd  have  stayed  in  the  Soath 
all  his  lahfe.  And  now  Mr.  Fulkerson  wants  him  to 
let  his  editor  see  some  of  his  wrahtings,  and  Ah  wanted 
to  know  something  aboat  the  magazine.  We  awe  a 
great  deal  excited  aboat  it  in  this  hoase,  you  know, 
Mr.  Beaton,"  she  concluded,  with  a  look  that  now  trans 
ferred  the  interest  from  Fulkerson  to  Alma.  She  led 
the  way  back  to  the  room  where  they  were  sitting,  and 
19  275 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

went  up  to  triumph  <>vor  Fulkerson  with  Beaton's  de 
cision  about  the  table-cover. 

Alma  was  left  with  Beaton  near  the  piano,  and  lie 
began  to  talk  about  the  Dryfooses  as  he  sat  down  on 
the  piano  -  stool.  He  said  he  had  been  giving  Miss 
Dryfoos  a  lesson  on  the  banjo;  he  had  borrowed  the 
banjo  of  Miss  Vance.  Then  he  struck  the  chord  he 
had  been  trying  to  teach  Christine,  and  played  over 
the  air  he  had  sung. 

"  How  do  you  like  that  ?"  he  asked,  whirling  round. 

"  It  seems  rather  a  disrespectful  little  tune,  some 
how,"  said  Alma,  placidly. 

Beaton  rested  his  elbow  on  the  corner  of  the  piano 
and  gazed  dreamily  at  her.  "  Your  perceptions  are 
wonderful.  It  is  disrespectful.  I  played  it,  up  there, 
because  I  felt  disrespectful  to  them." 

"  Do  you  claim  that  as  a  merit  ?" 

"  No,  I  state  it  as  a  fact.  How  can  you  respect  such 
people  ?" 

'  You  might  respect  yourself,  then,"  said  the  girl. 
"  Or  perhaps  that  wouldn't  be  so  easy,  either." 

"  No,  it  wouldn't.  I  like  to  have  you  say  these 
things  to  me,"  said  Beaton,  impartially. 

"  Well,  I  like  to  say  them,"  Alma  returned. 

"  They  do  me  good." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  that  that  was  my  motive." 

"  There  is  no  one  like  you — no  one,"  said  Beaton, 
as  if  apostrophizing  her  in  her  absence.  "  To  come 
from  that  house,  with  its  assertions  of  money  —  you 
can  hear  it  chink;  you  can  smell  the  foul  old  bank 
notes;  it  stifles  you — into  an  atmosphere  like  this,  is 
like  coming  into  another  world." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Alma.  "  I'm  glad  there  isn't 
that  unpleasant  odor  here ;  but  I  wish  there  was  a  little 


more  of  the  chinking.*' 


276 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"No,  no!  Don't  say  that!"  he  implored.  "I  liko 
to  think  that  there  is  one  soul  uncontaminated  by  the 
sense  of  money  in  this  big,  brutal,  sordid  city." 

"  You  mean  two,"  said  Alma,  with  modesty.  "  But 
if  you  stifle  at  the  Dryfooses',  why  do  you  go  there  ?" 

"  Why  do  I  go  ?"  he  mused.  "  Don't  you  believe 
in  knowing  all  the  natures,  the  types,  you  can  ?  Those 
girls  are  a  strange  study:  the  young  one  is  a  simple, 
earthly  creature,  as  common  as  an  oat-field;  and  the 
other  a  sort  of  sylvan  life :  fierce,  flashing,  feline — 

Alma  burst  out  into  a  laugh.  "  What  apt  allitera 
tion  !  And  do  they  like  being  studied  ?  I  should  think 
the  sylvan  life  might — scratch." 

"  No,"  said  Beaton,  with  melancholy  absence,  "  it- 
only — purrs." 

The  girl  felt  a  rising  indignation.  "  Well,  then,  Mr. 
Beaton,  I  should  hope  it  would  scratch,  and  bite,  too. 
I  think  you've  no  business  to  go  about  studying  people, 
as  you  do.  It's  abominable." 

u  Go  on,"  said  the  young  man.  "  That  Puritan  con 
science  of  yours !  It  appeals  to  the  old  Covenanter 
strain  in  me — like  a  voice  of  pre-existence.  Go  on — 

"  Oh,  if  I  went  on  I  should  merely  say  it  was  not 
only  abominable,  but  contemptible." 

"  You  could  be  my  guardian  angel,  Alma,"  said  the 
young  man,  making  his  eyes  more  and  more  slumbrous 
and  dreamy. 

"  Stuff !     I  hope  I  have  a  soul  above  buttons !" 

He  smiled,  as  she  rose,  and  followed  her  across  the 
room.  "  Good-night,  Mr.  Beaton,"  she  said. 

Miss  Woodburn  and  Fulkerson  came  in  from  the 
other  room.  "  What !  You're  not  going,  Beaton  ?" 

"  Yes ;  I'm  going  to  a  reception.  I  stopped  in  on 
my  way." 

"  To  kill  time,"  Alma  explained. 
277 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Well,"  said  Fulkerson,  gallantly,  "  this  is  the  last 
place  I  should  like  to  do  it.  But  I  guess  I'd  better 
be  going,  too.  It  has  sometimes  occurred  to  me  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  staying  too  late.  But  with 
Brother  Beaton,  here,  just  starting  in  for  an  evening's 
amusement,  it  does  seem  a  little  early  yet.  Can't  you 
urge  me  to  stay,  somebody  ?" 

The  two  girls  laughed,  and  Miss  Woodburn  said: 
"  Mr.  Beaton  is  such  a  butterfly  of  fashion !  Ah  wish 
Ah  was  on  mah  way  to  a  pawty.  Ah  feel  quahte 
envious." 

"  But  he  didn't  say  it  to  make  you,"  Alma  explained, 
with  meek  softness. 

"  Well,  we  can't  all  be  swells.  Where  is  your  party, 
anyway,  Beaton  ?"  asked  Fulkerson.  "  How  do  you 
manage  to  get  your  invitations  to  those  things  ?  I  sup 
pose  a  fellow  has  to  keep  hinting  round  pretty  lively, 
heigh?" 

Beaton  took  these  mockeries  serenely,  and  shook 
hands  with  Miss  Woodburn,  with  the  effect  of  hav 
ing  already  shaken  hands  with  Alma.  She  stood  with 
hers  clasped  behind  her. 


BEATON  went  away  with  the  smile  on  his  face  which 
he  had  kept  in  listening  to  Fulkerson,  and  carried  it 
with  him  to  the  reception.  He  believed  that  Alma  was 
vexed  with  him  for  more  personal  reasons  than  she 
had  implied;  it  flattered  him  that  she  should  have  re 
sented  what  he  told  her  of  the  Dryfooses.  She  had 
scolded  him  in  their  behalf  apparently;  but  really 
because  he  had  made  her  jealous  by  his  interest,  of 
whatever  kind,  in  some  one  else.  What  followed,  had 
followed  naturally.  Unless  she  had  been  quite  a  simple 
ton  she  could  not  have  met  his  provisional  love-making 
on  any  other  terms ;  and  the  reason  why  Beaton  chiefly 
liked  Alma  Leighton  was  that  she  was  not  a  simpleton. 
Even  up  in  the  country,  when  she  was  overawed  by 
his  acquaintance,  at  first,  she  was  not  very  deeply  over 
awed,  and  at  times  she  was  not  overawed  at  all.  At 
such  times  she  astonished  him  by  taking  his  most  sol 
emn  histrionics  with  flippant  incredulity,  and  even  bur 
lesquing  them.  But  he  could  see,  all  the  same,  that  he 
had  caught  her  fancy,  and  he  admired  the  skill  with 
which  she  punished  his  neglect  when  they  met  in  New 
York.  He  had  really  come  very  near  forgetting  the 
Leightons;  the  intangible  obligations  of  mutual  kind 
ness  which  hold  some  men  so  fast,  hung  loosely  upon 
him;  it  would  not  have  hurt  him  to  break  from  them 
altogether;  but  when  he  recognized  them  at  last,  he 
found  that  it  strengthened  them  indefinitely  to  have 

279 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Alma  ignore  them  so  completely.  If  she  had  been 
sentimental,  or  softly  reproachful,  that  would  have  been 
the  end ;  he  could  not  have  stood  it ;  he  would  have  had 
to  drop  her.  But  when  she  met  him  on  his  own  ground, 
and  obliged  him  to  be  sentimental,  the  game  was  in  her 
hands.  Beaton  laughed,  now,  when  he  thought  of  that, 
and  he  said  to  himself  that  the  girl  had  grown  im 
mensely  since  she  had  come  to  ISTew  York;  nothing 
seemed  to  have  been  lost  upon  her;  she  must  have  kept 
her  eyes  uncommonly  wide  open.  He  noticed  that  es 
pecially  in  their  talks  over  her  work;  she  had  profited 
by  everything  she  had  seen  and  heard;  she  had  all  of 
Wetmore's  ideas  pat;  it  amused  Beaton  to  see  how  she 
seized  every  useful  word  that  he  dropped,  too,  and 
turned  him  to  technical  account  whenever  she  could. 
He  liked  that;  she  had  a  great  deal  of  talent;  there 
was  no  question  of  that;  if  she  were  a  man  there  could 
be  no  question  of  her  future.  He  began  to  construct 
a  future  for  her ;  it  included  provision  for  himself,  too ; 
it  was  a  common  future,  in  which  their  lives  and  work 
were  united. 

He  was  full  of  the  glow  of  its  prosperity  when  he 
met  Margaret  Vance  at  the  reception. 

The  house  was  one  where  people  might  chat  a  long 
time  together  without  publicly  committing  themselves 
to  an  interest  in  each  other  except  such  a  grew  out  of 
each  other's  ideas.  Miss  Vance  was  there  because  she 
united  in  her  catholic  sympathies  or  ambitions  the  ob 
jects  of  the  fashionable  people  and  of  the  aesthetic 
people  who  met  there  on  common  ground.  It  was 
almost  the  only  house  in  New  York  where  this  hap 
pened  often,  and  it  did  not  happen  very  often  there. 
It  was  a  literary  house,  primarily,  with  artistic  quali 
fications,  and  the  frequenters  of  it  were  mostly  authors 
and  artists;  Wetmore,  who  was  always  trying  to  fit 

280 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

everything  with  a  phrase,  said  it  was  the  unfrequenters 
who  were  fashionable.  There  was  great  ease  there,  and 
simplicity ;  and  if  there  was  not  distinction,  it  was  not 
for  want  of  distinguished  people,  but  because  there 
seems  to  be  some  solvent  in  New  York  life  that  reduces 
all  men  to  a  common  level,  that  touches  everybody  with 
its  potent  magic  and  brings  to  the  surface  the  deeply 
underlying  nobody.  The  effect  for  some  temperaments, 
for  consciousness,  for  egotism,  is  admirable;  for  curi 
osity,  for  hero  worship,  it  is  rather  baffling.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  the  street  transferred  to  the  drawing-room ;  in- 
discriminating,  levelling,  but  doubtless  finally  whole 
some,  and  witnessing  the  immensity  of  the  place,  if  not 
consenting  to  the  grandeur  of  reputations  or  presences. 
Beaton  now  denied  that  this  house  represented  a 
salon  at  all,  in  the  old  sense ;  and  he  held  that  the 
salon  was  impossible,  even  undesirable,  with  us,  when 
Miss  Vance  sighed  for  it.  At  any  rate,  he  said  that 
this  turmoil  of  coming  and  going,  this  bubble  and 
babble,  this  cackling  and  hissing  of  conversation  was 
not  the  expression  of  any  such  civilization  as  had  cre 
ated  the  salon.  Here,  he  owned,  were  the  elements  of 
intellectual  delightfulness,  but  he  said  their  assemblage 
in  such  quantity  alone  denied  the  salon ;  there  was  too 
much  of  a  good  thing.  The  French  word  implied  a 
long  evening  of  general  talk  among  the  guests,  crowned 
with  a  little  chicken  at  supper,  ending  at  cock-crow. 
Here  was  tea,  with  milk  or  with  lemon — baths  of  it — 
and  claret-cup  for  the  hardier  spirits  throughout  the 
evening.  It  was  very  nice,  very  pleasant,  but  it  was 
not  the  little  chicken — not  the  salon.  In  fact,  he  af 
firmed,  the  salon  descended  from  above,  out  of  the  great 
world,  and  included  the  aesthetic  world  in  it.  But  our 
great  world — the  rich  people,  were  stupid,  with  no  wish 
to  be  otherwise;  they  were  not  even  curious  about 

2S1 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

authors  and  artists.  Beaton  fancied  himself  speaking 
impartially,  and  so  he  allowed  himself  to  speak  bit 
terly  ;  he  said  that  in  no  other  city  in  the  world,  except 
Vienna,  perhaps,  were  such  people  so  little  a  part  of 
society. 

"  It  isn't  altogether  the  rich  people's  fault,"  said 
Margaret;  and  she  spoke  impartially,  too.  "I  don't 
believe  that  the  literary  men  and  the  artists  would  like 
a  salon  that  descended  to  them.  Madame  Geoffrin,  you 
know,  was  very  plebeian;  her  husband  was  a  business 
man  of  some  sort." 

"  He  would  have  been  a  howling  swell  in  New  York," 
said  Beaton,  still  impartially. 

Wetmore  came  up  to  their  corner,  with  a  scroll  of 
bread  and  butter  in  one  hand  and  a  cup  of  tea  in  the 
other.  Large  and  fat,  and  clean-shaven,  he  looked  like 
a  monk  in  evening  dress. 

"  We  were  talking  about  salons,"  said  Margaret. 

"  Why  don't  you  open  a  salon  yourself  ?"  asked 
Wetmore,  breathing  thickly  from  the  anxiety  of  getting 
through  the  crowd  without  spilling  his  tea. 

"  Like  poor  Lady  Barberina  Lemon  ?"  said  the  girl, 
with  a  laugh.  "  What  a  good  story !  That  idea  of  a 
woman  who  couldn't  be  interested  in  any  of  the  arts 
because  she  was  socially  and  traditionally  the  material 
of  them!  We  can  never  reach  that  height  of  non 
chalance  in  this  country." 

"  Not  if  we  tried  seriously  ?"  suggested  the  painter. 
"  I've  an  idea  that  if  the  Americans  ever  gave  their 
minds  to  that  sort  of  thing,  they  could  take  the  palm 
— or  the  cake,  as  Beaton  here  would  say — just  as  they 
do  in  everything  else.  When  we  do  have  an  aristoc 
racy,  it  will  be  an  aristocracy  that  will  go  ahead  of 
anything  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Why  don't  some 
body  make  a  beginning,  and  go  in  openly  for  an  an- 

282 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

cestry,  and  a  lower  middle  class,  and  an  hereditary 
legislature,  and  all  the  rest?  We've  got  liveries,  and 
crests,  and  palaces,  and  caste  feeling.  We're  all  right 
as  far  as  we've  gone,  and  we've  got  the  money  to  go 
any  length." 

"  Like  your  natural-gas  man,  Mr.  Beaton,"  said  the 
girl,  with  a  smiling  glance  round  at  him. 

"  Ah !"  said  Wetmore,  stirring  his  tea,  "  has  Beaton 
got  a  natural-gas  man  ?" 

"  My  natural-gas  man,"  said  Beaton,  ignoring  Wet- 
more's  question,  "  doesn't  know  how  to  live  in  his  pal 
ace  yet,  and  I  doubt  if  he  has  any  caste  feeling.  I 
fancy  his  family  believe  themselves  victims  of  it.  They 
say  —  one  of  the  young  ladies  does  —  that  she  never 
saw  such  an  unsociable  place  as  New  York;  nobody 
calls." 

"  That's  good !"  said  Wetmore.  "  I  suppose  they're 
all  ready  for  company,  too:  good  cook,  furniture,  ser 
vants,  carriages  ?" 

"  Galore,"  said  Beaton. 

"  Well,  that's  too  bad.  There's  a  chance  for  you, 
Miss  Vance,  Doesn't  your  philanthropy  embrace  the 
socially  destitute  as  well  as  the  financially  ?  Just  think 
of  a  family  like  that,  without  a  friend,  in  a  great  city ! 
I  should  think  common  charity  had  a  duty  there — not 
to  mention  the  uncommon." 

He  distinguished  that  kind  as  Margaret's  by  a  glance 
of  ironical  deference.  She  had  a  repute  for  good  works 
which  was  out  of  proportion  to  the  works,  as  it  always 
is,  but  she  was  really  active  in  that  way,  under  the 
vague  obligation,  which  we  now  all  feel,  to  be  helpful. 
She  was  of  the  church  which  seems  to  have  found  a 
reversion  to  the  imposing  ritual  of  the  past  the  way 
back  to  the  early  ideals  of  Christian  brotherhood. 

"  Oh,  they  seem  to  have  Mr.  Beaton,"  Margaret 
283 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

answered,  and  Beaton  felt  obscurely  flattered  by  her 
reference  to  bis  patronage  of  the  Dryfooses. 

He  explained  to  Wetmore :  "  They  have  me  because 
they  partly  own  me.  Dryfoos  is  Fulkerson's  financial 
backer  in  Every  Other  Week." 

"  Is  that  so  ?  Well,  that's  interesting,  too.  Aren't 
you  rather  astonished,  Miss  Vance,  to  see  what  a  pretty 
thing  Beaton  is  making  of  that  magazine  of  his  ?" 

"  Oh,"  said  Margaret,  "  it's  so  very  nice,  every  way ; 
it  makes  you  feel  as  if  you  did  have  a  country,  after 
all.  It's  as  chic — that  detestable  little  word ! — as  those 
new  French  books." 

"  Beaton  modelled  it  on  them.  But  you  mustn't 
suppose  he  does  everything  about  Every  Other  Week; 
he'd  like  you  to.  Beaton,  you  haven't  come  up  to  that 
cover  of  your  first  number,  since.  That  was  the  design 
of  one  of  my  pupils,  Miss  Vance — a  little  girl  that 
Beaton  discovered  down  in  New  Hampshire  last  sum 


mer." 


"  Oh  yes.  And  have  you  great  hopes  of  her,  Mr. 
Wetmore  ?" 

"  She  seems  to  have  more  love  of  it  and  knack  for 
it  than  any  one  of  her  sex  I've  seen  yet.  It  really 
looks  like  a  case  of  art  for  art's  sake,  at  times.  But 
you  can't  tell.  They're  liable  to  get  married  at  any 
moment,  you  know.  Look  here,  Beaton,  when  your 
natural-gas  man  gets  to  the  picture-buying  stage  in  his 
development,  just  remember  your  old  friends,  will  you  ? 
You  know,  Miss  Vance,  those  new  fellows  have  their 

C regular  stages.  They  never  know  what  to  do  with  their 
money,  but  they  find  out  that  people  buy  pictures,  at 
Mie  point.  They  shut  your  things  up  in  their  houses 
where  nobody  comes;  and  after  a  while  they  overeat 
themselves — they  don't  know  what  else  to  do — and  die 
of  apoplexy,  and  leave  your  pictures  to  a  gallery,  and 

284 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

then  they  see  the  light.  It's  slow,  but  it's  pretty  sure. 
Well,  I  see  Beaton  isn't  going  to  move  on,  as  he  ought 
to  do ;  and  so  I  must.  He  always  was  an  unconvention 
al  creature." 

Wetmore  went  away,  but  Beaton  remained,  and  he 
outstayed  several  other  people  who  came  up  to  speak  to 
Miss  Vance.  She  was  interested  in  everybody,  and  she 
liked  the  talk  of  these  clever  literary,  artistic,  clerical, 
even  theatrical  people,  and  she  liked  the  sort  of  court 
with  which  they  recognized  her  fashion  as  well  as  her 
cleverness;  it  was  very  pleasant  to  be  treated  intellect 
ually  as  if  she  were  one  of  themselves,  and  socially  as 
if  she  was  not  habitually  the  same,  but  a  sort  of  guest 
in  Bohemia,  a  distinguished  stranger.  If  it  was  Ar 
cadia  rather  than  Bohemia,  still  she  felt  her  quality 
of  distinguished  stranger.  The  flattery  of  it  touched 
her  fancy,  and  not  her  vanity;  she  had  very  little 
vanity.  Beaton's  devotion  made  the  same  sort  of  ap 
peal  ;  it  was  not  so  much  that  she  liked  him  as  she  liked 
being  the  object  of  his  admiration.  She  was  a  girl  of 
genuine  sympathies,  intellectual  rather  than  sentimen 
tal.  In  fact,  she  was  an  intellectual  person,  whom 
qualities  of  the  heart  saved  from  being  disagreeable, 
as  they  saved  her  on  the  other  hand  from  being  worldly 
or  cruel  in  her  fashionableness.  She  had  read  a  great 
many  books,  and  had  ideas  about  them,  quite  cour 
ageous  and  original  ideas;  she  knew  about  pictures — 
she  had  been  in  Wetmore's  class;  she  was  fond  of 
music ;  she  was  willing  to  understand  even  politics ;  in 
Boston  she  might  have  been  agnostic,  but  in  New  York 
she  was  sincerely  religious ;  she  was  very  accomplished, 
and  perhaps  it  was  her  goodness  that  prevented  her 
feeling  what  was  not  best  in  Beaton. 

"  Do  you  think,"  she  said,  after  the  retreat  of  one 
of  the  corners  and  goers  left  her  alone  with  him  again, 

285 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  that  those  young  ladies  would   like  me  to  call  on 
them  ?" 

"  Those  young  ladies  ?"  Beaton  echoed.  "  Miss 
Leighton  and — " 

"  No ;  I  have  been  there  with  my  aunt's  cards  al 
ready." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Beaton,  as  if  he  had  known  of  it ; 
he  admired  the  pluck  and  pride  with  which  Alma  had 
refrained  from  ever  mentioning  the  fact  to  him,  and 
had  kept  her  mother  from  mentioning  it,  which  must 
have  been  difficult. 

"  I  mean  the  Miss  Dryfooses.  It  seems  really  bar 
barous,  if  nobody  goes  near  them.  We  do  all  kinds  of 
things,  and  help  all  kinds  of  people  in  some  ways,  but 
we  let  strangers  remain  strangers  unless  they  know  how 
to  make  their  way  among  us." 

"  The  Dryfooses  certainly  wouldn't  know  how  to 
make  their  way  among  you,"  said  Beaton,  with  a  sort 
of  dreamy  absence  in  his  tone. 

Miss  Vance  went  on,  speaking  out  the  process  of 
reasoning  in  her  mind,  rather  than  any  conclusions  she 
had  reached.  "  We  defend  ourselves  by  trying  to  be 
lieve  that  they  must  have  friends  of  their  own,  or  that 
they  would  think  us  patronizing,  and  wouldn't  like  be 
ing  made  the  objects  of  social  charity ;  but  they  needn't 
really  suppose  anything  of  the  kind." 

"  I  don't  imagine  they  would,"  said  Beaton.  "  I 
think  they'd  be  only  too  happy  to  have  you  come.  But 
you  wouldn't  know  what  to  do  with  each  other,  in 
deed,  Miss  Vance." 

"  Perhaps  we  shall  like  each  other,"  said  the  girl, 
bravely,  "  and  then  we  shall  know.  What  Church  are 
they  of?" 

"  I  don't  believe  they're  of  any,"  said  Beaton.  "  The 
mother  was  brought  up  a  Dunkard." 

286 


A    iiAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  A  Dunkard  ?" 

Beaton  told  what  he  knew  of  the  primitive  sect,  with 
its  early  Christian  polity,  its  literal  interpretation  of 
Christ's  ethics,  and  its  quaint  ceremonial  of  foot-wash 
ing;  he  made  something  picturesque  of  that.  "The 
father  is  a  Mammon-worshipper,  pure  and  simple.  I 
suppose  the  young  ladies  go  to  church,  but  I  don't 
know  where.  They  haven't  tried  to  convert  me." 

"  I'll  tell  them  not  to  despair — after  I've  converted 
them"  said  Miss  Vance.  "  Will  you  let  me  use  you  as 
a  point  d'appui,  Mr.  Beaton?" 

"  Any  way  you  like.  If  you're  really  going  to  see 
them,  perhaps  I'd  better  make  a  confession.  I  left 
your  banjo  with  them,  after  I  got  it  put  in  order." 

"  How  very  nice !  Then  we  have  a  common  interest 
already." 

"  Do  you  mean  the  banjo,  or— 

"  The  banjo,  decidedly.     Which  of  them  plays  ?" 

"  Neither.  But  the  eldest  heard  that  the  banjo  was 
'  all  the  rage,'  as  the  youngest  says.  Perhaps  you  can 
persuade  them  that  good  works  are  the  rage,  too." 

Beaton  had  no  very  lively  belief  that  Margaret 
would  go  to  see  the  Dryfooses;  he  did  so  few  of  the 
things  he  proposed  that  he  went  upon  the  theory  that 
others  must  be  as  faithless.  Still,  he  had  a  cruel  amuse7 
ment  in  figuring  the  possible  encounter  between  Mar 
garet  Vance,  with  her  intellectual  elegance,  her  eager 
sympathies  and  generous  ideals,  and  those  girls  with ' 
their  rude  past,  their  false  and  distorted  perspective, ' 
their  sordid  and  hungry  selfishness,  and  their  faith  in 
the  omnipotence  of  their  father's  wealth  wounded  by 
their  experience  of  its  present  social  impotence.  At  the 
bottom  of  his  heart  he  sympathized  with  them  rather 
than  with  her ;  he  was  more  like  them.^ 

People  had  ceased  coming,  and  some  of  them  were 

2S7 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

going.  Miss  Vance  said  she  must  go,  too,  and  she  was 
about  to  rise,  when  the  host  came  up  with  March; 
Beaton  turned  away. 

"Miss  Vance,  I  want  to  introduce  Mr.  March,  the 
editor  of  Every  Oilier  Week.  You  oughtn't  to  be  re 
stricted  to  the  art  department.  We  literary  fellows 
think  that  arm  of  the  service  gets  too  much  of  the 
glory  nowadays."  His  banter  was  for  Beaton,  but  he 
was  already  beyond  ear  -  shot,  and  the  host  went  on : 
"  Mr.  March  can  talk  with  you  about  your  favorite 
Boston.  He's  just  turned  his  back  on  it." 

"  Oh,  I  hope  not !"  said  Miss  Vance.  "  I  can't  im 
agine  anybody  voluntarily  leaving  Boston." 

"  I  don't  say  he's  so  bad  as  that,"  said  the  host, 
committing  March  to  her.  "  He  came  to  New  York 
because  he  couldn't  help  it  —  like  the  rest  of  us. 
I  never  know  whether  that's  a  compliment  to  New 
York  or  not." 

They  talked  Boston  a  little  while,  without  finding 
that  they  had  common  acquaintance  there ;  Miss  Vance 
must  have  concluded  that  society  was  much  larger  in 
Boston  than  she  had  supposed  from  her  visits  there,  or 
else  that  March  did  not  know  many  people  in  it.  But 
she  was  not  a  girl  to  care  much  for  the  inferences  that 
might  be  drawn  from  such  conclusions;  she  rather 
prided  herself  upon  despising  them ;  and  she  gave 
herself  to  the  pleasure  of  being  talked  to  as  if  she 
were  of  March's  own  age.  In  the  glow  of  her  sym 
pathetic  beauty  and  elegance  he  talked  his  best,  and 
tried  to  amuse  her  with  his  jokes,  which  he  had  the 
art  of  tingeing  with  a  little  seriousness  on  one  side. 
He  made  her  laugh;  and  he  flattered  her  by  making 
her  think;  in  her  turn  she  charmed  him  so  much  by 
enjoying  what  he  said  that  he  began  to  brag  of  his  wife, 
as  a  good  husband  always  does  when  another  woman 

288 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

charms  him ;  and  she  asked,  Oh  was  Mrs.  March  there ; 
and  would  he  introduce  her  ? 

She  asked  Mrs.  March  for  her  address,  and  whether 
she  had  a  day ;  and  she  said  she  would  come  to  see  her, 
if  she  would  let  her.  Mrs.  March  could  not  be  so  en 
thusiastic  about  her  as  March  was,  but  as  they  walked 
home  together  they  talked  the  girl  over,  and  agreed 
about  her  beauty  and  her  amiability.  Mrs.  March  said 
she  seemed  very  unspoiled  for  a  person  who  must  have 
been  so  much  spoiled.  They  tried  to  analyze  her  charm, 
and  they  succeeded  in  formulating  it  as  a  combination 
of  intellectual  fashionableness  and  worldly  innocence. 
"  I  think,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  that  city  girls,  brought 
up  as  she  must  have  been,  are  often  the  most  innocent 
of  all.  They  never  imagine  the  wickedness  of  the 
world,  and  if  they  marry  happily  they  go  through 
life  as  innocent  as  children.  Everything  combines  to 
keep  them  so ;  the  very  hollowness  of  society  shields 
them.  They  are  the  loveliest  of  the  human  race.  But 
perhaps  the  rest  have  to  pay  too  much  for  them." 

"  For  such  an  exquisite  creature  as  Miss  \rance," 
said  March,  "  we  couldn't  pay  too  much." 

A  wild  laughing  cry  suddenly  broke  upon  the  air  at 
the  street-crossing  in  front  of  them.  A  girl's  voice 
called  out:  "  Kun,  run,  Jen!  The  copper  is  after 
you."  A  woman's  figure  rushed  stumbling  across  the 
way  and  into  the  shadow  of  the  houses,  pursued  by  a 
burly  policeman. 

"  Ah,  but  if  that's  part  of  the  price  ?" 

They  went  along  fallen  from  the  gay  spirit  of  their 
talk  into  a  silence  which  he  broke  with  a  sigh.  "  Can 
that  poor  wretch  and  the  radiant  girl  we  left  yonder 
really  belong  to  the  same  system  of  things?  How  im 
possible  each  makes  the  other  seem !" 


VI 


MRS.  HORN  believed  in  the  world  and  in  society  and 
its  unwritten  constitution  devoutly,  and  she  tolerated 
her  niece's  benevolent  activities  as  she  tolerated  her 
aesthetic  sympathies  because  these  things,  however  odd 
ly,  were  tolerated — even  encouraged — by  society;  and 
they  gave  Margaret  a  charm.  They  made  her  original 
ity  interesting.  Mrs.  Horn  did  not  intend  that  they 
should  ever  go  so  far  as  to  make  her  troublesome ;  and 
it  was  with  a  sense  of  this  abeyant  authority  of  her 
aunt's  that  the  girl  asked  her  approval  of  her  proposed 
call  upon  the  Dryfooses.  She  explained  as  well  as  she 
could  the  social  destitution  of  these  opulent  people,  and 
she  had  of  course  to  name  Beaton  as  the  source  of  her 
knowledge  concerning  them. 

"  Did  Mr.  Beaton  suggest  your  calling  on  them  ?" 

"  No ;  he  rather  discouraged  it." 

"  And  why  do  you  think  you  ought  to  go  in  this 
particular  instance?  New  York  is  full  of  people  who 
don't  know  anybody." 

Margaret  laughed.  "  I  suppose  it's  like  any  other 
charity:  you  reach  the  cases  you  know  of.  The  others 
you  say  you  can't  help,  and  you  try  to  ignore  them." 

"  It's  very  romantic,"  said  Mrs.  Horn.  "  I  hope 
you've  counted  the  cost;  all  the  possible  consequences." 

Margaret  knew  that  her  aunt  had  in  mind  their  com 
mon  experience  with  the  Leightons,  whom,  to  give  their 
common  conscience  peace,  she  had  called  upon  with  her 

290 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

aunt's  cards  and  excuses,  and  an  invitation  for  her 
Thursdays,  somewhat  too  late  to  make  the  visit  seem 
a  welcome  to  New  York.  She  was  so  coldly  received, 
not  so  much  for  herself  as  in  her  quality  of  envoy,  that 
her  aunt  experienced  all  the  comfort  which  vicarious 
penance  brings.  She  did  not  perhaps  consider  suf 
ficiently  her  niece's  guiltlessness  in  the  expiation.  Mar 
garet  was  not  with  her  at  St.  Barnaby  in  the  fatal 
fortnight  she  passed  there,  and  never  saw  the  Leightons 
till  she  went  to  call  upon  them.  She  never  complained : 
the  strain  of  asceticism,  which  mysteriously  exists  in 
us  all,  and  makes  us  put  peas,  boiled  or  unboiled,  in 
our  shoes,  gave  her  patience  with  the  snub  which  the 
Leightons  presented  her  for  her  aunt.  But  now  she 
said,  with  this  in  mind :  "  Nothing  seems  simpler  than 
to  get  rid  of  people  if  you  don't  want  them.  You 
merely  have  to  let  them  alone." 

"  It  isn't  so  pleasant,  letting  them  alone,"  said  Mrs. 
Horn. 

"  Or  having  them  let  you  alone,"  said  Margaret ; 
for  neither  Mrs.  Leighton  nor  Alma  had  ever  come 
to  enjoy  the  belated  hospitality  of  Mrs.  Horn's  Thurs 
days. 

"  Yes,  or  having  them  let  you  alone,"  Mrs.  Horn 
courageously  consented.  "  And  all  that  I  ask  you, 
Margaret,  is  to  be  sure  that  you  really  want  to  know 
these  people." 

"  I  don't,"  said  the  girl,  seriously,  "  in  the  usual 
way." 

"  Then  the  question  is  whether  you  do  in  the  un 
usual  way.  They  will  build  a  great  deal  upon  you," 
said  Mrs.  Horn,  realizing  how  much  the  Leightons 
must  have  built  upon  her,  and  how  much  out  of  pro 
portion  to  her  desert  they  must  now  dislike  her;  for 
she  seemed  to  have  had  them  on  her  mind  from  the 
20  291 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

time  they  came,  and  had  always  meant  to  recognize 
any  reasonable  claim  they  had  upon  her. 

"  It  seems  very  odd,  very  sad,"  Margaret  returned, 
"  that  you  never  could  act  unselfishly  in  society  affairs. 
If  I  wished  to  go  and  see  those  girls  just  to  do  them 
a  pleasure,  and  perhaps  because  if  they're  strange  and 
lonely,  I  might  do  them  good,  even — it  would  be  im 
possible." 

"  Quite,"  said  her  aunt.  "  Such  a  thing  would  be 
quixotic.  Society  doesn't  rest  upon  any  such  basis. 
It  can't;  it  would  go  to  pieces,  if  people  acted  from 
unselfish  motives." 

"  Then  it's  a  painted  savage !"  said  the  girl.  "  All 
its  favors  are  really  bargains.  It's  gifts  are  for  gifts 
back  again." 

"  Yes,  that  is  true,"  said  Mrs.  Horn,  with  no  more 
sense  of  wrong  in  the  fact  than  the  political  economist 
has  in  the  fact  that  wages  are  the  measure  of  necessity 
and  not  of  merit.  "  You  get  what  you  pay  for.  It's 
a  matter  of  business."  She  satisfied  herself  with  this 
formula,  which  she  did  not  invent,  as  fully  as  if  it 
were  a  reason ;  but  she  did  not  dislike  her  niece's  revolt 
against  it.  That  was  part  of  Margaret's  originality, 
which  pleased  her  aunt  in  proportion  to  her  own  con 
ventionality ;  she  was  really  a  timid  person,  and  she 
liked  the  show  of  courage  which  Margaret's  mag 
nanimity  often  reflected  upon  her.  She  had  through 
her  a  repute,  with  people  who  did  not  know  her  well, 
for  intellectual  and  moral  qualities;  she  was  supposed 
to  be  literary  and  charitable ;  she  almost  had  opinions 
and  ideals,  but  really  fell  short  of  their  possession. 
She  thought  that  she  set  bounds  to  the  girl's  originality 
because  she  recognized  them.  Margaret  understood 
this  better  than  her  aunt,  and  knew  that  she  had  con 
sulted  her  about  going  to  see  the  Dryfooses  out  of 

292 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    EOKTUNES 

deference,  and  with  no  expectation  of  luminous  in 
struction.  She  was  used  to  being  a  law  to  herself, 
but  she  knew  what  she  might  and  might  not  do,  so 
that  she  was  rather  a  by-law.  She  was  the  kind  of 
girl  that  might  have  fancies  for  artists  and  poets,  but 
might  end  by  marrying  a  prosperous  broker,  and  leaven 
ing  a  vast  lump  of  moneyed  and  fashionable  life  with 
her  culture,  generosity,  and  good-will.  The  intellectual 
interests  were  first  with  her,  but  she  might  be  equal 
to  sacrificing  them;  she  had  the  best  heart,  but  she 
might  know  how  to  harden  it;  if  she  was  eccentric, 
her  social  orbit  was  defined ;  comets  themselves  traverse 
space  on  fixed  lines.  She  was  like  every  one  else,  a 
congeries  of  contradictions  and  inconsistencies,  but 
obedient  to  the  general  expectation  of  what  a  girl  of 
her  position  must  and  must  not  finally  be.  Provision 
ally,  she  was  very  much  what  she  liked  to  be. 


VII 


MARGAKET  VANCE  tried  to  give  herself  some  reason 
for  going  to  call  upon  the  Dryfooses,  but  she  could 
find  none  better  than  the  wish  to  do  a  kind  thing.  This 
seemed  queerer  and  less  and  less  sufficient  as  she  ex 
amined  it,  and  she  even  admitted  a  little  curiosity  as 
a  harmless  element  in  her  motive,  without  being  very 
well  satisfied  with  it.  She  tried  to  add  a  slight  sense 
of  social  duty,  and  then  she  decided  to  have  no  motive 
at  all,  but  simply  to  pay  her  visit  as  she  would  to  any 
other  eligible  strangers  she  saw  fit  to  call  upon.  She 
perceived  that  she  must  be  very  careful  not  to  let  them 
see  that  any  other  impulse  had  governed  her;  she  de 
termined,  if  possible,  to  let  them  patronize  her;  to  be 
very  modest  and  sincere  and  diffident,  and,  above  all, 
not  to  play  a  part.  This  was  easy,  compared  with  the 
choice  of  a  manner  that  should  convey  to  them  the  fact 
that  she  was  not  playing  a  part.  When  the  hesitating 
Irish  serving-man  had  acknowledged  that  the  ladies 
were  at  home,  and  had  taken  her  card  to  them,  she 
sat  waiting  for  them  in  the  drawing-room.  Her  study 
of  its  appointments,  with  their  impersonal  costliness, 
gave  her  no  suggestion  how  to  proceed;  the  two  sisters 
were  upon  her  before  she  had  really  decided,  and  she 
rose  to  meet  them  with  the  conviction  that  she  was 
going  to  play  a  part  for  want  of  some  chosen  means  of 
not  doing  so.  She  found  herself,  before  she  knew  it, 
making  her  banjo  a  property  in  the  little  comedy,  and 

294 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

professing  so  much  pleasure  in  the  fact  that  Miss  Dry- 
foos  was  taking  it  up;  she  had  herself  been  so  much 
interested  by  it.  Anything,  she  said,  was  a  relief  from 
the  piano ;  and  then,  between  the  guitar  and  the  banjo, 
one  must  really  choose  the  banjo,  unless  one  wanted 
to  devote  one's  whole  natural  life  to  the  violin.  Of 
course,  there  was  the  mandolin ;  but  Margaret  asked 
if  they  did  not  feel  that  the  bit  of  shell  you  struck  it 
with  interposed  a  distance  between  you  and  the  real 
soul  of  the  instrument;  and  then  it  did  have  such  a 
faint,  mosquitoy  little  tone!  She  made  much  of  the 
question,  which  they  left  her  to  debate  alone  while  they 
gazed  solemnly  at  her  till  she  characterized  the  tone 
of  the  mandolin,  when  Mela  broke  into  a  large,  coarse 
laugh. 

"  Well,  that's  just  what  it  does  sound  like,"  she 
explained  defiantly  to  her  sister.  "  I  always  feel  like 
it  was  going  to  settle  somewhere,  and  I  want  to  hit 
myself  a  slap  before  it  begins  to  bite.  I  don't  see  what 
ever  brought  such  a  thing  into  fashion." 

Margaret  had  not  expected  to  be  so  powerfully  sec 
onded,  and  she  asked,  after  gathering  herself  together, 
"  And  you  are  both  learning  the  banjo  ?" 

"  My,  no !"  said  Mela,  "  I've  gone  through  enough 
with  the  piano.  Christine  is  learnun'  it." 

"  I'm  so  glad  you  are  making  my  banjo  useful  at 
the  outset,  Miss  Dryfoos."  Both  girls  stared  at  her, 
but  found  it  hard  to  cope  with  the  fact  that  this  was 
the  lady  friend  whose  banjo  Beaton  had  lent  them. 
"  Mr.  Beaton  mentioned  that  he  had  left  it  here.  I 
hope  you'll  keep  it  as  long  as  you  find  it  useful." 

At  this  amiable  speech  even  Christine  could  not  help 
thanking  her.  "  Of  course,"  she  said,  "  I  expect  to 
get  another,  right  off.  Mr.  Beaton  is  going  to  choose 
it  for  me." 

295 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  You  are  very  fortunate.  If  you  haven't  a  teacher 
yet  I  should  so  like  to  recommend  mine." 

Mela  broke  out  in  her  laugh  again.  "  Oh,  I  guess 
Christine's  pretty  well  suited  with  the  one  she's  got," 
she  said,  with  insinuation.  Her  sister  gave  her  a 
frowning  glance,  and  Margaret  did  not  tempt  her  to 
explain. 

"  Then  that's  much  better,"  she  said.  "  I  have  a 
kind  of  superstition  in  such  matters;  I  don't  like  to 
make  a  second  choice.  In  a  shop  I  like  to  take  the 
first  thing  of  the  kind  I'm  looking  for,  and  even  if  I 
choose  further  I  come  back  to  the  original." 

"  How  funny !"  said  Mela.  "  Well,  now,  I'm  just 
the  other  way.  I  always  take  the  last  thing,  after  I've 
picked  over  all  the  rest.  My  luck  always  seems  to  be 
at  the  bottom  of  the  heap.  Now,  Christine,  she's  more 
like  you.  I  believe  she  could  walk  right  up  blind 
folded  and  put  her  hand  on  the  thing  she  wants  every 
time." 

"  I'm  like  father,"  said  Christine,  softened  a  little 
by  the  celebration  of  her  peculiarity.  "  He  says  the 
reason  so  many  people  don't  get  what  they  wrant  is  that 
they  don't  want  it  bad  enough.  Now,  when  I  want  a 
thing,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  want  it  all  through." 

"Well,  that's  just  like  father,  too,"  said  Mela. 
"  That's  the  way  he  done  when  he  got  that  eighty- 
acre  piece  next  to  Moffitt  that  he  kept  when  he  sold 
the  farm,  and  that's  got  some  of  the  best  gas-wells  on 
it  now  that  there  is  anywhere."  She  addressed  the 
explanation  to  her  sister,  to  the  exclusion  of  Margaret, 
who,  nevertheless,  listened  with  a  smiling  face  and  a 
resolutely  polite  air  of  being  a  party  to  the  conversa 
tion.  Mela  rewarded  her  amiability  by  saying  to  her, 
finally,  "  You've  never  been  in  the  natural-gas  country, 
have  you  ?" 

296 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

"  Oh  no !  And  I  should  so  much  like  to  see  it !" 
said  Margaret,  with  a  fervor  that  was  partly  voluntary. 

"  Would  you  ?  Well,  we're  kind  of  sick  of  it,  but  I 
suppose  it  would  strike  a  stranger." 

"  /  never  got  tired  of  looking  at  the  big  wells  when 
they  lit  them  up,"  said  Christine.  "  It  seems  as  if  the 
world  was  on  fire." 

"  Yes,  and  when  you  see  the  surface  -  gas  burnun' 
down  in  the  woods,  like  it  used  to  by  our  spring-house — 
so  still,  and  never  spreadun'  any,  just  like  a  beef  of  some 
kind  of  wild  flowers  when  you  ketch  sight  of  it  a  piece 
off." 

They  began  to  tell  of  the  wonders  of  their  strange 
land  in  an  antiphony  of  reminiscences  and  descrip 
tions;  they  unconsciously  imputed  a  merit  to  them 
selves  from  the  number  and  violence  of  the  wells  on 
their  father's  property;  they  bragged  of  the  high  civil 
ization  of  Moffitt,  which  they  compared  to  its  advantage 
with  that  of  New  York.  They  became  excited  by  Mar 
garet's  interest  in  natural  gas,  and  forgot  to  be  sus 
picious  and  envious. 

She  said,  as  she  rose,  "  Oh,  how  much  I  should  like 
to  see  it  all !"  Then  she  made  a  little  pause,  and  added : 
"  I'm  so  sorry  my  aunt's  Thursdays  are  over ;  she  never 
has  them  after  Lent,  but  we're  to  have  some  people 
Tuesday  evening  at  a  little  concert  which  a  musical 
friend  is  going  to  give  with  some  other  artists.  There 
won't  be  any  banjos,  I'm  afraid,  but  there'll  be  some 
very  good  singing,  and  my  aunt  would  be  so  glad  if 
you  could  come  with  your  mother." 

She  put  down  her  aunt's  card  on  the  table  near  her, 
while  Mela  gurgled,  as  if  it  were  the  best  joke:  "  Oh, 
my!  Mother  never  goes  anywhere;  you  couldn't  get 
her  out  for  love  or  money."  But  she  was  herself  over 
whelmed  with  a  simple  joy  at  Margaret's  politeness, 

297 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  showed  it  in  a  sensuous  way,  like  a  child,  as  if  she 
had  been  tickled.  She  came  closer  to  Margaret  and 
seemed  about  to  fawn  physically  upon  her. 

"  Ain't  she  just  as  lovely  as  she  can  live  ?"  she  de 
manded  of  her  sister  when  Margaret  was  gone. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Christine.  "  I  guess  she 
wanted  to  know  who  Mr.  Beaton  had  been  lending 
her  banjo  to." 

"  Pshaw !  Do  you  suppose  she's  in  love  with  him  ?" 
asked  M^la,  and  then  she  broke  into  her  hoarse  laugh 
at  the  look  her  sister  gave  her.  "  Well,  don't  eat  me, 
Christine !  I  wonder  who  she  is,  anyway  ?  I'm  goun' 
to  git  it  out  of  Mr.  Beaton  the  next  time  he  calls.  I 
guess  she's  somebody.  Mrs.  Mandel  can  tell.  I  wish 
that  old  friend  of  hers  would  hurry  up  and  git  well — 
or  something.  But  I  guess  we  appeared  about  as  well 
as  she  did.  I  could  see  she  was  afraid  of  you,  Christine. 
I  reckon  it's  gittun'  around  a  little  about  father;  and 
when  it  does  I  don't  believe  we  shall  want  for  callers. 
Say,  are  you  goun'  ?  To  that  concert  of  theirs  ?" 

"  I  don't  know.    "Not  till  I  know  who  they  are  first." 

"  Well,  we've  got  to  hump  ourselves  if  we're  goun' 
to  find  out  before  Tuesday." 

As  she  went  home  Margaret  felt  wrought  in  her 
that  most  incredible  of  the  miracles,  which,  neverthe 
less,  any  one  may  make  his  experience.  She  felt  kindly 
to  these  girls  because  she  had  tried  to  make  them  happy, 
and  she  hoped  that  in  the  interest  she  had  shown  there 
had  been  none  of  the  poison  of  flattery.  She  was  aware 
that  this  was  a  risk  she  ran  in  such  an  attempt  to  do 
good.  If  she  had  escaped  this  effect  she  was  willing  to 
leave  the  rest  with  Providence. 


VIII 

THE  notion  that  a  girl  of  Margaret  Vance's  tradi 
tions  would  naturally  form  of  girls  like  Christine  and 
Mela  Dryfoos  would  be  that  they  were  abashed  in  the 
presence  of  the  new  conditions  of  their  lives,  and  that 
they  must  receive  the  advance  she  had  made  them  with 
a  certain  grateful  humility.  However  they  received  it, 
she  had  made  it  upon  principle,  from  a  romantic  con 
ception  of  duty;  but  this  was  the  way  she  imagined 
they  would  receive  it,  because  she  thought  that  she 
would  have  done  so  if  she  had  been  as  ignorant  and 
unbred  as  they.  Her  error  was  in  arguing  their  at 
titude  from  her  own  temperament,  and  endowing  them, 
for  the  purposes  of  argument,  with  her  perspective. 
They  had  not  the  means,  intellectual  or  moral,  of  feel 
ing  as  she  fancied.  If  they  had  remained  at  home 
on  the  farm  where  they  were  born,  Christine  would 
have  grown  up  that  embodiment  of  impassioned  sus 
picion  which  we  find  oftenest  in  the  narrowest  spheres, 
and  Mela  would  always  have  been  a  good  -  natured 
simpleton ;  but  they  would  never  have  doubted  their 
equality  with  the  wisest  and  the  finest.  As  it  was, 
they  had  not  learned  enough  at  school  to  doubt  it,  and 
the  splendor  of  their  father's  success  in  making  money 
had  blinded  them  forever  to  any  possible  difference 
against  them.  They  had  no  question  of  themselves  in 
the  social  abeyance  to  which  they  had  been  left  in  !N"ew 
York.  They  had  been  surprised,  mystified;  it  was  not 
what  they  had  expected;  there  must  be  some  mistake. 

299 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

They  were  the  victims  of  an  accident,  which  would  be 
repaired  as  soon  as  the  fact  of  their  father's  wealth  had 
got  around.  They  had  been  steadfast  in  their  faith, 
through  all  their  disappointment,  that  they  were  not 
only  better  than  most  people  by  virtue  of  his  money, 
but  as  good  as  any;  and  they  took  Margaret's  visit,  so 
far  as  they  investigated  its  motive,  for  a  sign  that  at 
last  it  was  beginning  to  get  around ;  of  course,  a  thing 
could  not  get  around  in  New  York  so  quick  as  it  could 
in  a  small  place.  They  were  confirmed  in  their  belief 
by  the  sensation  of  Mrs.  Mandel  when  she  returned  to 
duty  that  afternoon,  and  they  consulted  her  about  going 
to  Mrs.  Horn's  musicale.  If  she  had  felt  any  doubt  at 
the  name — for  there  were  Horns  and  Horns — the  ad 
dress  on  the  card  put  the  matter  beyond  question ;  and 
she  tried  to  make  her  charges  understand  what  a  pre 
cious  chance  had  befallen  them.  She  did  not  succeed; 
they  had  not  the  premises,  the  experience,  for  a  suf 
ficient  impression ;  and  she  undid  her  work  in  part  by 
the  effort  to  explain  that  Mrs.  Horn's  standing  was 
independent  of  money;  that  though  she  was  positively 
rich,  she  was  comparatively  poor.  Christine  inferred 
that  Miss  Vance  had  called  because  she  wished  to  be  the 
first  to  get  in  with  them  since  it  had  begun  to  get 
around.  This  view  commended  itself  to  Mela,  too,  but 
without  warping  her  from  her  opinion  that  Miss  Vance 
was  all  the  same  too  sweet  for  anything.  She  had  not 
so  vivid  a  consciousness  of  her  father's  money  as  Chris 
tine  had ;  but  she  reposed  perhaps  all  the  more  con 
fidently  upon  its  power.  She  was  far  from  thinking 
meanly  of  any  one  who  thought  highly  of  her  for  it ; 
that  seemed  so  natural  a  result  as  to  be  amiable,  even 
admirable ;  she  was  willing  that  any  such  person  should 
get  all  the  good  there  was  in  such  an  attitude  toward 
her. 

300 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

They  discussed  the  matter  that  night  at  dinner  be 
fore  their  father  and  mother,  who  mostly  sat  silent  at 
their  meals ;  the  father  frowning  absently  over  his  plate, 
with  his  head  close  to  it,  and  making  play  into  his 
mouth  with  the  back  of  his  knife  (he  had  got  so  far 
toward  the  use  of  his  fork  as  to  despise  those  who  still 
ate  from  the  edge  of  their  knives),  and  the  mother 
partly  missing  hers  at  times  in  the  nervous  tremor  that 
shook  her  face  from  side  to  side. 

After  a  while  the  subject  of  Mela's  hoarse  babble 
and  of  Christine's  high-pitched,  thin,  sharp  forays  of 
assertion  and  denial  in  the  field  which  her  sister's  voice 
seemed  to  cover,  made  its  way  into  the  old  man's  con 
sciousness,  and  he  perceived  that  they  were  talking 
with  Mrs.  Mandel  about  it,  and  that  his  wife  was 
from  time  to  time  offering  an  irrelevant  and  mistaken 
comment.  He  agreed  with  Christine,  and  silently  took 
her  view  of  the  affair  some  time  before  he  made  any 
sign  of  having  listened.  There  had  been  a  time  in  his 
life  when  other  things  besides  his  money  seemed  ad 
mirable  to  him.  He  had  once  respected  himself  for 
the  hard-headed,  practical  common  sense  which  first 
gavo  him  standing  among  his  country  neighbors;  which 
made  him  supervisor,  school  trustee,  justice  of  the 
peace,  county  commissioner,  secretary  of  the  Moffitt 
County  Agricultural  Society.  In  those  days  he  had 
served  the  public  with  disinterested  zeal  and  proud 
ability;  he  used  to  write  to  the  Lake  Shore  Farmer 
on  agricultural  topics ;  he  took  part  in  opposing,  through 
the  Moffitt  papers,  the  legislative  waste  of  the  people's 
money;  on  the  question  of  selling  a  local  canal  to  the 
railroad  company,  which  killed  that  fine  old  State  work, 
and  let  the  dry  ditch  grow  up  to  grass,  he  might  have 
gone  to  the  Legislature,  but  he  contented  himself  with 
defeating  the  Moffitt  member  who  had  voted  for  the 

301 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

job.  If  he  opposed  some  measures  for  the  general 
good,  like  high  schools  and  school  libraries,  it  was  be 
cause  he  lacked  perspective,  in  his  intense  individual 
ism,  and  suspected  all  expense  of  being  spendthrift. 
He  believed  in  good  district  schools,  and  he  had  a 
fondness,  crude  but  genuine,  for  some  kinds  of  read 
ing — history,  and  forensics  of  an  elementary  sort. 

With  his  good  head  for  figures  he  doubted  doctors 
and  despised  preachers;  he  thought  lawyers  were  all 
rascals,  but  he  respected  them  for  their  ability ;  he  was 
not  himself  litigious,  but  he  enjoyed  the  intellectual 
encounters  of  a  difficult  lawsuit,  and  he  often  attended 
a  sitting  of  the  fall  term  of  court,  when  he  went  to 
town,  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  speeches.  He 
was  a  good  citizen,  and  a  good  husband.  As  a  good 
father,  he  was  rather  severe  with  his  children,  and 
used  to  whip  them,  especially  the  gentle  Conrad,  who 
somehow  crossed  him  most,  till  the  twins  died.  After 
that  he  never  struck  any  of  them ;  and  from  the  sight 
of  a  blow  dealt  a  horse  he  turned  as  if  sick.  It  was 
a  long  time  before  he  lifted  himself  up  from  his  sor 
row,  and  then  the  will  of  the  man  seemed  to  have  been 
breached  through  his  affections.  He  let  the  girls  do  as 
they  pleased — the  twins  had  been  girls ;  he  let  them  go 
away  to  school,  and  got  them  a  piano.  It  was  they  who 
made  him  sell  the  farm.  If  Conrad  had  only  had 
their  spirit  he  could  have  made  him  keep  it,  he  felt; 
and  he  resented  the  want  of  support  he  might  have 
found  in  a  less  yielding  spirit  than  his  son's. 

His  moral  decay  began  with  his  perception  of  the 
opportunity  of  making  money  quickly  and  abundantly, 
which  offered  itself  to  him  after  he  sold  his  farm.  He 
awoke  to  it  slowly,  from  a  desolation  in  which  he  tasted 
the  last  bitter  of  homesickness,  the  utter  misery  of 
idleness  and  listlessness.  When  he  broke  down  and 

302 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

cried  for  the  hard-working,  wholesome  life  he  had  lost, 
he  was  near  the  end  of  this  season  of  despair,  but  he 
was  also  near  the  end  of  what  was  host  in.  himself.  lip 
devolved  upon  a  meaner  ideal  than  that  of  conservative 
good  citizenship,  Avhich  had  been  his  chief  moral  ex 
perience:  the  money  he  had  already  made  without  ef 
fort  and  without  merit  bred  its  unholy  self-love  in  him ; 
he  began  to  honor  money,  especially  money  that  had 
been  Avon  suddenly  and  in  large  sums;  for  money^ 
that  had  been  earned  painfully,  slowly,  and  in  little 
amounts, .._lie_  had  qnl;v_._pJLty  and  contempL.  The  poison 
oFlhat  ambition  to  go  somewhere  and  be  somebody 
which  the  local  speculators  had  instilled  into  him  be 
gan  to  work  in  the  vanity  which  had  succeeded  his 
somewhat  scornful  self-respect;  he  rejected  Europe  as 
the  proper  field  for  his  expansion;  he  rejected  Wash 
ington;  he  preferred  New  York,  whither  the  men  who 
have  made  money  and  do  not  yet  know  that  money  has 
made  them,  all  instinctively  turn.  He  came  where  he 
could  watch  his  money  breed  more  money,  and  bring 
greater  increase  of  its  kind  in  an  hour  of  luck  than  the 
toil  of  hundreds  of  men  could  earn  in  a  year.  H© 
called  it  speculation,  stocks,  the  Street;  and  his  pride, 
his  faith  in  himself,  mounted  with  his  luck.  He  ex 
pected,  when  he  had  sated  his  greed,  to  begin  to  spend, 
and  he  had  formulated  an  intention  to  build  a  great 
house,  to  add  another  to  the  palaces  of  the  country-bred 
millionaires  who  have  come  to  adorn  the  great  city.  In 
the  mean  time  he  made  little  account  of  the  things  that 
occupied  his  children,  except  to  fret  at  the  ungrateful 
indifference  of  his  son  to  the  interests  that  could  alone 
make  a  man  of  him.  He  did  not  know  whether  his 
daughters  were  in  society  or  not;  with  people  coming 
and  going  in  the  house  he  would  have  supposed  they 
must  be  so,  no  matter  who  the  people  were;  in  some 

303 


A    HAZAKD    OP    NEW    FOKTUNES 

vague  way  he  felt  that  he  had  hired  society  in  Mrs. 
Mnudel,  at~so~"nmch"  a  yeal\  Henever  met  a  superior 
himself  except  now  and  then  a  man  of  twenty  or  thirty 
millions  to  his  one  or  two,  and  then  he  felt  his  soul 
creep  within  him,  without  a  sense  of  social  inferiority ; 
it  was  a  question  of  financial  inferiority;  and  though 
Dryfoos's  soul  bowed  itself  and  crawled,  it  was  with 
a  gambler's  admiration  of  wonderful  luck.  Other  men 
said  these  many-millioned  millionaires  were  smart,  and 
got  their  money  by  sharp  practices  to  which  lesser  men 
could  not  attain;  but  Dryfoos  believed  that  he  could 
compass  the  same  ends,  by  the  same  means,  with  the 
same  chances ;  he  respected  their  money,  not  them. 

When  he  now  heard  Mrs.  Mandel  and  his  daughters 
talking  of  that  person,  whoever  she  was,  that  Mrs. 
Mandel  seemed  to  think  had  honored  his  girls  by 
coming  to  see  them,  his  curiosity  was  pricked  as  much 
as  his  pride  was  galled. 

"  Well,  anyway,"  said  Mela,  "  I  don't  care  whether 
Christine's  goun'  or  not ;  I  am.  And  you  got  to  go  with 
me,  Mrs.  Mandel." 

"  Well,  there's  a  little  difficulty,"  said  Mrs.  Mandel, 
with  her  unfailing  dignity  and  politeness.  "  I  haven't 
been  asked,  you  know." 

"  Then  what  are  we  goun'  to  do  ?"  demanded  Mela, 
almost  crossly.  She  was  physically  too  amiable,  she 
felt  too  well  corporeally,  ever  to  be  quite  cross.  "  She 
might  'a'  knowed — well  known — we  couldn't  V  come 
alone,  in  New  York.  I  don't  see  why  we  couldn't.  I 
don't  call  it  much  of  an  invitation." 

"  I  suppose  she  thought  you  could  come  with  your 
mother,"  Mrs.  Mandel  suggested. 

"  She  didn't  say  anything  about  mother.  Did  she, 
Christine?  Or,  yes,  she  did,  too.  And  I  told  her  she 
couldn't  git  mother  out.  Don't  you  remember?" 

304 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  didn't  pay  much  attention,"  said  Christine.  "  I 
wasn't  certain  we  \vanted  to  go." 

"  I  reckon  you  wasn't  goun'  to  let  her  see  that  we 
cared  much,"  said  Mela,  half  reproachful,  half  proud 
of  this  attitude  of  Christine.  "  Well,  I  don't  see  but 
what  we  got  to  stay  at  home."  She  laughed  at  this 
lame  conclusion  of  the  matter. 

"  Perhaps  Mr.  Conrad  —  you  could  very  properly 
take  him  without  an  express  invitation — "  Mrs.  Man- 
del  began. 

Conrad  looked  up  in  alarm  and  protest.  "  I — I  don't 
think  I  could  go  that  evening — " 

"  What's  the  reason  ?"  his  father  broke  in,  harshly. 
"  You're  not  such  a  sheep  that  you're  afraid  to  go  into 
company  with  your  sisters  ?  Or  are  you  too  good  to  go 
with  them  ?" 

"  If  it's  to  be  anything  like  that  night  when  them 
hussies  come  out  and  danced  that  way,"  said  Mrs. 
Dryfoos,  "  I  don't  blame  Coonrod  for  not  wantun'  to 
go.  I  never  saw  the  beat  of  it." 

Mela  sent  a  yelling  laugh  across  the  table  to  her 
mother.  "  Well,  I  wish  Miss  Vance  could  'a'  heard 
that !  Why,  mother,  did  you  think  it  like  the  ballet  ?" 

"  Well,  I  didn't  know,  Mely,  child,"  said  the  old 
woman.  "  I  didn't  know  what  it  was  like.  I  hain't 
never  been  to  one,  and  you  can't  be  too  keerful  where 
you  go,  in  a  place  like  New  York." 

"  What's  the  reason  you  can't  go  ?"  Dryfoos  ignored 
the  passage  between  his  wife  and  daughter  in  making 
this  demand  of  his  son,  with  a  sour  face. 

"  I  have  an  engagement  that  night — it's  one  of  our 
meetings — " 

"  I  reckon  you  can  let  your  meeting  go  for  one 
night,"  said  Dryfoos.  "  It  can't  be  so  important  as 
all  that,  that  you  must  disappoint  your  sisters." 

305 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  don't  like  to  disappoint  those  poor  creatures. 
They  depend  so  much  upon  the  meetings — 

"  I  reckon  they  can  stand  it  for  one  night,"  said 
the  old  man.  He  added,  "  The  poor  ye  have  with  you 
always." 

"  That's  so,  Coonrod,"  said  his  mother.  "  It's  the 
Saviour's  own  words." 

"  Yes,  mother.  But  they're  not  meant  just  as  father 
used  them." 

"  How  do  you  know  how  they  were  meant  ?  Or 
how  I  used  them  ?"  cried  the  father.  "  Now  you  just 
make  your  plans  to  go  with  the  girls,  Tuesday  night. 
They  can't  go  alone,  and  Mrs.  Mandel  can't  go  with 
them." 

"  Pshaw!"  said  Mela.  "  We  don't  want  to  take  Con 
rad  away  from  his  meetun',  do  we?  Chris?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Christine,  in  her  high,  fine 
voice.  "  They  could  get  along  without  him  for  one 
night,  as  father  says." 

"  Well,  I'm  not  a-goun?  to  take  him,"  said  Mela. 
"  Now,  Mrs.  Mandel,  just  think  out  some  other 
way.  Say!  What's  the  reason  we  couldn't  get 
somebody  else  to  take  us  just  as  well?  Ain't  that 
rulable?" 

"  It  would  be  allowable — " 

"  Allowable,  I  mean"  Mela  corrected  herself. 

"  But  it  might  look  a  little  significant,  unless  it  was 
some  old  family  friend." 

"  Well,  let's  get  Mr.  Fulkerson  to  take  us.  He's  the 
oldest  family  friend  we  got." 

"  I  won't  go  with  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  said  Christine, 
serenely. 

"  Why,  I'm  sure,  Christine,"  her  mother  pleaded, 
"  Mr.  Fulkerson  is  a  very  good  young  man,  and  very 
nice  appearun'." 

306 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Mela  shouted,  "  He's  ten  times  as  pleasant  as  that 
old  Mr.  Beaton  of  Christine's !" 

Christine  made  no  effort  to  break  the  constraint  that 
fell  upon  the  table  at  this  sally,  but  her  father  said: 
"  Christine  is  right,  Mela.  It  wouldn't  do  for  you  to 
go  with  any  other  young  man.  Conrad  will  go  with 
you." 

"  I'm  not  certain  I  want  to  go,  yet,"  said  Christine. 

"  Well,  settle  that  among  yourselves.  But  if  you 
Avant  to  go,  your  brother  will  go  with  you." 

"  Of  course,  Coonrod  '11  go,  if  his  sisters  wants  him 
to,"  the  old  woman  pleaded.  "  I  reckon  it  ain't  agoun' 
to  be  anything  very  bad;  and  if  it  is,  Coonrod,  why 
you  can  just  git  right  up  and  come  out." 

"  It  will  be  all  right,  mother.  And  I  will  go,  of 
course." 

"  There,  now,  I  knowed  you  would,  Coonrod.  Now, 
fawther!"  This  appeal  was  to  make  the  old  man  say 
something  in  recognition  of  Conrad's  sacrifice. 

"You'll  always  find,"  he  said,  "that  it's  those  of 
your  own  household  that  have  the  first  claim  on  you." 

"  That's  so,  Coonrod,"  urged  his  mother.  "  It's 
Bible  truth.  Your  fawtlier  ain't  a  perfesser,  but  ho 
always  did  read  his  Bible.  Search  the  Scriptures. 
That's  what  it  means." 

"  Laws !"  cried  Mely,  "  a  body  can  see,  easy  enough 
from  mother,  where  Conrad's  wantun'  to  be  a  preacher 
comes  from.  I  should  'a'  thought  she'd  'a'  wanted  to 
been  one  herself." 

"  Let  your  women  keep  silence  in  the  churches,"  said 
the  old  woman,  solemnly. 

"  There  you  go  again,  mother !     I  guess  if  you  was 
to  say  that  to  some  of  the  lady  ministers  nowadays, 
you'd  git  yourself  into  trouble."     Mela  looked  round 
for  approval,  and  gurgled  out  a  hoarse  laugh. 
21  307 


IX 


THE  Dryfooses  went  late  to  Mrs.  Horn's  musicals, 
in  spite  of  Mrs.  Handel's  advice.  Christine  made  the 
delay,  both  because  she  wished  to  show  Miss  Vance 
that  she  was^anxious,  and  because  she  had  some  vague 
notion  of  the  distinction  of  arriving  late  at  any  sort  of 
entertainment.  Mrs.  Mandel  insisted  upon  the  differ 
ence  between  this  musicale  and  an  ordinary  reception; 
but  Christine  rather  fancied  disturbing  a  company  that 
had  got  seated,  and  perhaps  making  people  rise  and 
stand,  while  she  found  her  way  to  her  place,  as  she 
had  seen  them  do  for  a  tardy  comer  at  the  theatre. 

Mela,  whom  she  did  not  admit  to  her  reasons  or 
feelings  always,  followed  her  with  the  servile  admira 
tion  she  had  for  all  that  Christine  did;  and  she  took 
on  trust  as  somehow  successful  the  result  of  Christine's 
obstinacy,  when  they  were  allowed  to  stand  against  the 
wall  at  the  back  of  the  room  through  the  whole  of  the 
long  piece  begun  just  before  they  came  in.  There  had 
been  no  one  to  receive  them ;  a  few  people,  in  the  rear 
rows  of  chairs  near  them,  turned  their  heads  to  glance  at 
them,  and  then  looked  away  again.  Mela  had  her  mis 
givings;  but  at  the  end  of  the  piece  Miss  Vance  came 
up  to  them  at  once,  and  then  Mela  knew  that  she  had 
her  eyes  on  them  all  the  time,  and  that  Christine  must 
have  been  right.  Christine  said  nothing  about  their 
coming  late,  and  so  Mela  did  not  make  any  excuse, 
and  Miss  Vance  seemed  to  expect  none.  She  glanced 

308 


A    HAZAED    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  a  sort  of  surprise  at  Conrad,  when  Christine  in 
troduced  him;  Mela  did  not  know  whether  she  liked 
their  bringing  him,  till  she  shook  hands  with  him,  and 
said:  "  Oh,  I  am  very  glad  indeed!  Mr.  Dryfoos  and 
I  have  met  before."  Without  explaining  where  or 
when,  she  led  them  to  her  aunt  arid  presented  them, 
and  then  said,  "  I'm  going  to  put  you  with  some  friends 
of  yours,"  and  quickly  seated  them  next  the  Marches. 
Mela  liked  that  well  enough;  she  thought  she  might 
have  some  joking  with  Mr.  March,  for  all  his  wife 
was  so  stiff;  but  the  look  which  Christine  wore  seemed 
to  forbid,  provisionally  at  least,  any  such  recreation. 
On  her  part,  Christine  was  cool  with  the  Marches.  It 
went  through  her  mind  that  they  must  have  told  Miss 
Vance  they  knew  her;  and  perhaps  they  had  boasted 
of  her  intimacy.  She  relaxed  a  little  toward  them 
when  she  saw  Beaton  leaning  against  the  wall  at  the 
end  of  the  row  next  Mrs.  March.  Then  she  conjectured 
that  he  might  have  told  Miss  Vance  of  her  acquaintance 
with  the  Marches,  and  she  bent  forward  and  nodded 
to  Mrs.  March  across  Conrad,  Mela,  and  Mr.  March. 
She  conceived  of  him  as  a  sort  of  hand  of  her  father's, 
but  she  was  willing  to  take  them  at  their  apparent 
social  valuation  for  the  time.  She  leaned  back  in  her 
chair,  and  did  not  look  up  at  Beaton  after  the  first 
furtive  glance,  though  she  felt  his  eyes  on  her. 

The  music  began  again  almost  at  once,  before  Mela 
had  time  to  make  Conrad  tell  her  where  Miss  Vance 
had  met  him  before.  She  would  not  have  minded  in 
terrupting  the  music;  but  every  one  else  seemed  so  at 
tentive,  even  Christine,  that  she  had  not  the  courage. 

The  concert  went  on  to  an  end  without  realizing 
for  her  the  ideal  of  pleasure  which  one  ought  to  find 
in  society.  She  was  not  exacting,  but  it  seemed  to 
her  there  were  very  few  young  men,  and  when  the 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

music  was  over,  and  their  opportunity  came  to  be 
sociable,  they  were  not  very  sociable.  They  were  not 
introduced,  for  one  thing;  but  it  appeared  to  Mela  that 
they  might  have  got  introduced,  if  they  had  any  sense ; 
she  saw  them  looking  at  her,  and  she  was  glad  she  had 
dressed  so  much ;  she  was  dressed  more  than  any  other 
lady  there,  and  either  because  she  was  the  most  dressed 
of  any  person  there,  or  because  it  had  got  around  who 
her  father  was,  she  felt  that  she  had  made  an  impres 
sion  on  the  young  men.  In  her  satisfaction  with  this, 
and  from  her  good  nature,  she  was  contented  to  be 
served  with  her  refreshments  after  the  concert  by  Mr. 
March,  and  to  remain  joking  with  him.  She  was  at 
her  ease;  she  let  her  hoarse  voice  out  in  her  largest 
laugh;  she  accused  him,  to  the  admiration  of  those 
near,  of  getting  her  into  a  perfect  gale.  It  appeared 
to  her,  in  her  own  pleasure,  her  mission  to  illustrate 
to  the  rather  subdued  people  about  her  what  a  good 
time  really  was,  so  that  they  could  have  it  if  they 
wanted  it.  Her  joy  was  crowned  when  March  modestly 
professed  himself  unworthy  to  monopolize  her,  and  ex 
plained  how  selfish  he  felt  in  talking  to  a  young  lady 
when  there  were  so  many  young  men  dying  to  do  so. 

"  Oh,  pshaw,  dyun',  yes !"  cried  Mela,  tasting  the 
irony.  "  I  guess  I  see  them !" 

He  asked  if  he  might  really  introduce  a  friend  of 
his  to  her,  and  she  said,  Well,  yes,  if  he  thought  he 
could  live  to  get  to  her;  and  March  brought  up  a  man 
whom  he  thought  very  young  and  Mela  thought  very 
old.  He  was  a  contributor  to  Every  Other  Week,  and 
so  March  knew  him;  he  believed  himself  a  student  of 
human  nature  in  behalf  of  literature,  and  he  now  set 
about  studying  Mela.  He  tempted  her  to  express  her 
opinion  on  all  points,  and  he  laughed  so  amiably  at 
the  boldness  and  humorous  vigor  of  her  ideas  that  she 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

was  delighted  with  him.  She  asked  him  if  he  was  a 
New- Yorker  by  birth ;  and  she  told  him  she  pitied  him, 
when  he  said  he  had  never  heen  West.  She  professed 
herself  perfectly  sick  of  New  York,  and  urged  him  to 
go  to  Moffitt  if  he  wanted  to  see  a  real  live  town.  He 
wondered  if  it  would  do  to  put  her  into  literature  just 
as  she  was,  with  all  her  slang  _and  brag,  but  he  decided 
that  he  would  have  to  subdue  her  a  great  deal:  he__did 
not  see  how  he  could  reconcile  the  facts  of  her  con 
versation  with  the  facts  of  her  appearance :  her  beauty, 
heF~splendor  of  dress,  her  apparent  right  to  be  where 
shejwas.  These  things  perplexed  him;  he  was  afraid 
the  great  American  novel,  if  true,  must  be  incredible. 
Mela  said  he  ought  to  hear  her  sister  go  on  about  New 
York  when  they  first  came;  but  she  reckoned  that 
Christine  was  getting  so  she  could  put  up  with  it  a 
little  better,  now.  She  looked  significantly  across  the 
room  to  the  place  where  Christine  was  now  talking  with 
Beaton ;  and  the  student  of  human  nature  asked,  Was 
she  here?  and,  Would  she  introduce  him?  Mela  said 
she  would,  the  first  chance  she  got;  and  she  added, 
They  would  be  much  pleased  to  have  him  call.  She 
felt  herself  to  be  having  a  beautiful  time,  and  she  got 
directly  upon  such  intimate  terms  with  the  student  of 
human  nature  that  she  laughed  with  him  about  some 
peculiarities  of  his,  such  as  his  going  so  far  about  to 
ask  things  he  wanted  to  know  from  her;  she  said  she 
never  did  believe  in  beating  about  the  bush  much.  She 
had  noticed  the  same  thing  in  Miss  Vance  when  she 
came  to  call  that  day ;  and  when  the  young  man  owned 
that  he  came  rather  a  good  deal  to  Mrs.  Horn's  house, 
she  asked  him,  Well,  what  sort  of  a  girl  was  Miss 
Vance,  anyway,  and  where  did  he  suppose  she  had  met 
her  brother?  The  student  of  human  nature  could  not 
say  as  to  this,  and  as  to  Miss  Vance  he  judged  it  safest 

311 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

to  treat  of  the  non-society  side  of  her  character,  her 
activity  in  charity,  her  special  devotion  to  the  work 
among  the  poor  on  the  East  Side,  which  she  personally 
engaged  in. 

"  Oh,  that's  where  Conrad  goes,  too !"  Mela  inter 
rupted.  "  I'll  bet  anything  that's  where  she  met  him. 
I  wisht  I  could  tell  Christine!  But  I  suppose  she 
would  want  to  kill  me,  if  I  was  to  speak  to  her  now" 

The  student  of  human  nature  said,  politely,  "  Oh, 
shall  I  take  you  to  her  ?" 

Mela  answered,  "  I  guess  you  better  not  /"  with  a 
laugh  so  significant  that  he  could  not  help  his  infer 
ences  concerning  both  Christine's  absorption  in  the  per 
son  she  was  talking  with  and  the  habitual  violence  of 
her  temper.  He  made  note  of  how  Mela  helplessly 
spoke  of  all  her  family  by  their  names,  as  if  he  were 
already  intimate  with  them  ;  he  fancied  that  if  he  could 
get  that  in  skilfully,  it  would  be  a  valuable  color  in 
his  study;  the  English  lord  whom  she  should  astonish 
with  it  began  to  form  himself  out  of  the  dramatic 
nebulosity  in  his  mind,  and  to  whirl  on  a  definite 
orbit  in  American  society.  But  he  was  puzzled  to  de 
cide  whether  Mela's  willingness  to  take  him  into  her 
confidence  on  short  notice  was  typical  or  personal:  the 
trait  of  a  daughter  of  the  natural-gas  millionaire,  or 
a  foible  of  her  own. 

Beaton  talked  with  Christine  the  greater  part  of  the 
evening  that  was  left  after  the  concert.  He  was  very 
grave,  and  took  the  tone  of  a  fatherly  friend ;  he  spoke 
guardedly  of  the  people  present,  and  moderated  the 
severity  of  some  of  Christine's  judgments  of  their  looks 
and  costumes.  He  did  this  out  of  a  sort  of  unreasoned 
allegiance  to  Margaret,  whom  he  was  in  the  mood  of 
wishing  to  please  by  being  very  kind  and  good,  as  she 

always  was.     He  had  the  sense  also  of  atoning  by  this 

312 


A     HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

behavior  for  some  reckless  tilings  he  had  said  before 
that  to  Christine;  he  put  on  a  sad,  reproving  air 
with  her,  and  gave  her  the  feeling  of  being  held  in 
check. 

She  chafed  at  it,  and  said,  glancing  at  Margaret  in 
talk  with  her  brother,  "  I  don't  think  Miss  Vance  is 
so  very  pretty,  do  you  ?" 

"  I  never  think  whether  she's  pretty  or  not,"  said 
Beaton,  with  dreamy  affectation.  u  She  is  merely  per 
fect.  Does  she  know  your  brother  ?" 

"  So  she  says.  I  didn't  suppose  Conrad  ever  went 
anywhere,  except  to  tenement-houses." 

"  It  might  have  been  there,"  Beaton  suggested. 
"  She  goes  among  friendless  people  everywhere." 

"  Maybe  that's  the  reason  she  came  to  see  us!"  said 
Christine. 

Beaton  looked  at  her  with  his  smouldering  eyes,  and 
felt  the  wish  to  say,  "  Yes,  it  was  exactly  that,"  but  he 
only  allowed  himself  to  deny  the  possibility  of  any  such 
motive  in  that  case.  He  added:  "I  am  so  glad  you 
know  her,  Miss  Dryfoos.  I  never  met  Miss  Vance 
without  feeling  myself  better  and  truer,  somehow;  or 
the  wish  to  be  so." 

"  And  you  think  we  might  be  improved,  too  ?"  Chris 
tine  retorted.  "  Well,  I  must  say  you're  not  very  flat 
tering,  Mr.  Beaton,  anyway." 

Beaton  would  have  liked  to  answer  her  according  to 
her  cattishness,  with  a  good  clawing  sarcasm  that  would 
leave  its  smart  in  her  pride;  but  he  was  being  good, 
and  he  could  not  change  all  at  once.  Besides,  the  girl's 
attitude  under  the  social  honor  done  her  interested  him. 
He  was  sure  she  had  never  been  in  such  good  com 
pany  before,  but  he  could  see  that  she  was  not  in  the 
least  affected  by  the  experience.  He  had  told  her  who 
this  person  and  that  was;  and  he  saw  she  had  under- 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

stood  that  the  names  were  of  consequence;  but  she, 
seemed  to  feel  her  equality  with  them  all.  Her  serenity 
was  not  obviously  akin  to  the  savage  stoicism  in  which 
Beaton  hid  his  own  consciousness  of  social  inferiority ; 
but  having  won  his  way  in  the  world  so  far  by  his 
talent,  his  personal  quality,  he  did  not  conceive  the 
simple  fact  in  her  case.  Christine^  was  self-possessed 
because  she  felt  that  a  knowledge  of  her  father's  fort 
une  had  got  around,  and  she  had  the  peace  which 
money  gives  to  ignorance;  but  Beaton  attributed  her 
poise  to  indifference  to  social  values.  This,  while  he 
inwardly  sneered  at  it,  avenged  him  upon  his  own  too 
keen  sense  of  them,  and,  together  with  his  temporary 
allegiance  to  Margaret's  goodness,  kept  him  from  re 
taliating  Christine's  vulgarity.  He  said,  "  I  don't  see 
how  that  could  be,"  and  left  the  question  of  flattery  to 
settle  itself. 

The  people  began  to  go  away,  following  each  other 
up  to  take  leave  of  Mrs.  Horn.  Christine  watched 
them  with  unconcern,  and  either  because  she  would 
not  be  governed  by  the  general  movement,  or  because 
she  liked  being  with  Beaton,  gave  no  sign  of  going. 
Mela  was  still  talking  to  the  student  of  human  nature, 
sending  out  her  laugh  in  deep  gurgles  amid  the  unim 
aginable  confidences  she  was  making  him  about  herself, 
her  family,  the  staff  of  Every  Other  Week,  Mrs.  Man- 
del,  and  the  kind  of  life  they  had  all  led  before  she 
came  to  them.  He  was  not  a  blind  devotee  of  art  for 
art's  sake,  and  though  he  felt  that  if  one  could  portray 
Mela  just  as  she  was  she  would  be  the  richest  possible 
material,  he  was  rather  ashamed  to  know  some  of  the 
things  she  told  him;  and  he  kept  looking  anxiously 
about  for  a  chance  of  escape.  The  company  had  re 
duced  itself  to  the  Dryfoos  groups  and  some  friends  of 
Mrs.  Horn's  who  had  the  right  to  linger,  when  Mar- 


A    HAZAKD    OE    NEW    FOKTUNES 

garet  crossed  the  room  with  Conrad  to  Christine  and 
Beaton. 

"  I'm  so  glad,  Miss  Dryfoos,  to  find  that  I  was  not 
quite  a  stranger  to  you  all  when  I  ventured  to  call, 
the  other  day.  Your  brother  and  I  are  rather  old  ac 
quaintances,  though  I  never  knew  who  he  was  before. 
I  don't  know  just  how  to  say  we  met  where  he  is 
valued  so  much.  I  suppose  I  mustn't  try  to  say  how 
much,"  she  added,  with  a  look  of  deep  regard  at  him. 

Conrad  blushed  and  stood  folding  his  arms  tight 
over  his  breast,  while  his  sister  received  Margaret's 
confession  with  the  suspicion  which  was  her  first  feel 
ing  in  regard  to  any  new  thing.  What  she  concluded 
was  that  this  girl  was  trying  to  get  in  with  them,  for 
reasons  of  her  own.  She  said :  "  Yes ;  it's  the  first 
/  ever  heard  of  his  knowing  you.  He's  so  much 
taken  up  with  his  meetings,  he  didn't  want  to  come 
to-night." 

Margaret  drew  in  her  lip  before  she  answered,  with 
out  apparent  resentment  of  the  awkwardness  or  un 
graciousness,  whichever  she  found  it :  "  I  don't  wonder ! 
You  become  so  absorbed  in  such  work  that  you  think 
nothing  else  is  worth  while.  But  I'm  glad  Mr.  Dry 
foos  could  come  with  you;  I'm  so  glad  you  could  all 
come;  I  knew  you  would  enjoy  the  music.  Do  sit 
down — " 

"  No,"  said  Christine,  bluntly ;  "  we  must  be  going. 
Mela !"  she  called  out,  "  come !" 

The  last  group  about  Mrs.  Horn  looked  round,  but 
Christine  advanced  upon  them  undismayed,  and  took 
the  hand  Mrs.  Horn  promptly  gave  her.  "  Well,  I 
must  bid  you  good-night." 

"  Oh,  good-night,"  murmured  the  elder  lady.  "  So 
very  kind  of  you  to  come." 

"  I've   had   the  best  kind   of   a   time,"    said   Mela, 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

cordially.  "  I  hain't  laughed  so  much,  I  don't  know 
when." 

"  Oh,  I'm  glad  you  enjoyed  it,"  said  Mrs.  Horn,  in 
the  same  polite  murmur  she  had  used  with  Christine; 
but  she  said  nothing  to  either  sister  about  any  future 
meeting. 

They  were  apparently  not  troubled.  Mela  said  over 
her  shoulder  to  the  student  of  human  nature,  "  The 
next  time  I  see  you  I'll  give  it  to  you  for  what  you 
said  about  Moffitt." 

Margaret  made  some  entreating  paces  after  them, 
but  she  did  not  succeed  in  covering  the  retreat  of  the 
sisters  against  critical  conjecture.  She  could  only  say 
to  Conrad,  as  if  recurring  to  the  subject,  "  I  hope  we 
can  get  our  friends  to  play  for  us  some  night.  I  know 
it  isn't  any  real  help,  but  such  things  take  the  poor 
creatures  out  of  themselves  for  the  time  being,  don't 
you  think?" 

"  Oh  yes,"  he  answered.  "  They're  good  in  that 
way."  He  turned  back  hesitatingly  to  Mrs.  Horn,  and 
said,  with  a  blush,  "  I  thank  you  for  a  happy  evening." 

"  Oh,  I  am  very  glad,"  she  replied,  in  her  murmur. 

One  of  the  old  friends  of  the  house  arched  her  eye 
brows  in  saying  good-night,  and  offered  the  two  young 
men  remaining  seats  home  in  her  carriage.  Beaton 
gloomily  refused,  and  she  kept  herself  from  asking  the 
student  of  human  nature,  till  she  had  got  him  into 
her  carriage,  "  AVhat  is  Moffitt,  and  what  did  you  say 
about  it?" 

"  Now  you  see,  Margaret,"  said  Mrs.  Horn,  with 
bated  triumph,  when  the  people  were  all  gone. 

"  Yes,  I  see,"  the  girl  consented.  "  From  one  point 
of  view,  of  course  it's  been  a  failure.  I  don't  think 
we've  given  Miss  Dryfoos  a  pleasure,  but  perhaps  no- 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

body  could.     And  at  least  we've  given  her  the  oppor 
tunity  of  enjoying  herself." 

"  Such  people,"  said  Mrs.  Horn,  philosophically, 
"  people  with  their  money,  must  of  course  be  received 
sooner  or  later.  You  can't  keep  them  out.  Only,  I 
believe  I  would  rather  let  some  one  else  begin  with 
them.  The  Leightons  didn't  come  ?" 

"  I  sent  them  cards.     I  couldn't  call  again." 

Mrs.  Horn  sighed  a  little.  "  I  suppose  Mr.  Dryfoos 
is  one  of  your  fellow-philanthropists?" 

"  He's  one  of  the  workers,"  said  Margaret.  "  I  met 
him  several  times  at  the  Hall,  but  I  only  knew  his 
first  name.  I  think  he's  a  great  friend  of  Father 
Benedict;  he  seems  devoted  to  the  work.  Don't  you 
think  he  looks  good?" 

"  Very,"  said  Mrs.  Horn,  with  a  color  of  censure  in 
her  assent.  "  The  younger  girl  seemed  more  amiable 
than  her  sister.  But  what  manners !" 

"Dreadful!"  said  Margaret,  with  knit  brows,  and 
a  pursed  mouth  of  humorous  suffering.  "  But  she  ap 
peared  to  feel  very  much  at  home." 

"  Oh,  as  to  that,  neither  of  them  was  much  abashed. 
Do  you  suppose  Mr.  Beaton  gave  the  other  one  some 
hints  for  that  quaint  dress  of  hers?  I  don't  imagine 
that  black  and  lace  is  her  own  invention.  She  seems 
to  have  some  sort  of  strange  fascination  for  him." 

"  She's  very  picturesque,"  Margaret  explained.  "  And 
artists  see  points  in  people  that  the  rest  of  us  don't." 

"  Could  it  be  her  money  ?"  Mrs.  Horn  insinuated. 
"  He  must  be  very  poor." 

"  But  he  isn't  base,"  retorted  the  girl,  with  a  gen 
erous  indignation  that  made  her  aunt  smile. 

"  Oh  no ;  but  if  he  fancies  her  so  picturesque,  it 
doesn't  follow  that  he  would  object  to  her  being  rich." 

"  It  would  with  a  man  like  Mr.  Beaton !" 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  You  are  an  idealist,  Margaret.  I  suppose  your 
Mr.  March  has  some  disinterested  motive  in  paying 
court  to  Miss  Mela — Pamela,  I  suppose,  is  her  name. 
He  talked  to  her  longer  than  her  literature  would  have 
lasted." 

"  He  seems  a  very  kind  person,"  said  Margaret. 

"  And  Mr.  Dryfoos  pays  his  salary  ?" 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  that.  But  that 
wouldn't  make  any  difference  with  him." 

Mrs.  Horn  laughed  out  at  this  security;  but  she 
was  not  displeased  by  the  nobleness  which  it  came 
from.  She  liked  Margaret  to  be  high-minded,  and 
was  really  not  distressed  by  any  good  that  was  in  her. 

The  Marches  walked  home,  both  because  it  was  not 
far,  and  because  they  must  spare  in  carriage  hire  at 
any  rate.  As  soon  as  they  were  out  of  the  house,  she 
applied  a  point  of  conscience  to  him. 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  could  talk  to  that  girl  so  long, 
Basil,  and  make  her  laugh  so." 

"  Why,  there  seemed  no  one  else  to  do  it,  till  I 
thought  of  Kendricks." 

"  Yes,  but  I  kept  thinking,  Now  he's  pleasant  to 
her  because  he  thinks  it's  to  his  interest.  If  she  had 
no  relation  to  Every  Other  Week,  he  wouldn't  waste 
his  time  on  her." 

"  Isabel,"  March  complained,  "  I  wish  you  wouldn't 
think  of  me  in  lie,  him,  and  his;  I  never  personalize 
you  in  my  thoughts:  you  remain  always  a  vague  un- 
indivi dualized  essence,  not  quite  without  form  and 
void,  but  nounless  and  pronounless.  I  call  that  a  much 
more  beautiful  mental  attitude  toward  the  object  of 
one's  affections.  But  if  you  must  he  and  him  and 
his  me  in  your  thoughts,  I  wish  you'd  have  more  kind 
ly  thoughts  of  me." 

318 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Do  you  deny  that  it's  true,  Basil  ?" 

"  Do  you  believe  that  it's  true,  Isabel  ?" 

"  No  matter.     But  could  you  excuse  it  if  it  were  2" 

"  Ah,  I  see  you'd  have  been  capable  of  it  in  my 
place,  and  you're  ashamed." 

"  Yes,"  sighed  the  wife,  "  I'm  afraid  that  I  should. 
But  tell  me  that  you  wouldn't,  Basil !" 

"  I  can  tell  you  that  I  wasn't.  But  I  suppose  that 
in  a  real  exigency,  I  could  truckle  to  the  proprietary 
Dryfooses  as  well  as  you." 

"  Oh  no ;  you  mustn't,  dear !  I'm  a  woman,  and 
I'm  dreadfully  afraid.  But  you  must  always  be  a 
man,  especially  with  that  horrid  old  Mr.  Dryfoos. 
Promise  me  that  you'll  never  yield  the  least  point, 
to  him  in  a  matter  of  right  and  wrong!" 

"  ISot  if  he's  right  and  I'm  wrong  I" 

"  Don't  trifle,  dear !  You  know  what  I  mean.  Will 
you  promise  ?" 

"  I'll  promise  to  submit  the  point  to  you,  and  let 
you  do  the  yielding.  As  for  me,  I  shall  be  adamant. 
Nothing  I  like  better." 

"  They're  dreadful,  even  that  poor,  good  young  fel 
low,  who's  so  different  from  all  the  rest;  he's  awful, 
too,  because  you  feel  that  he's  a  martyr  to  them." 

"  And  I  never  did  like  martyrs  a  great  deal,"  March 
interposed. 

"  I  wonder  how  they  came  to  be  there,"  Mrs.  March 
pursued,  unmindful  of  his  joke. 

"  That  is  exactly  what  seemed  to  be  puzzling  Miss 
Mela  about  us.  She  asked,  and  I  explained  as  well  as 
I  could;  and  then  she  told  me  that  Miss  Vance  had 
come  to  call  on  them  and  invited  them;  and  first  they 
didn't  know  how  they  could  come  till  they  thought  of 
making  Conrad  bring  them.  But  she  didn't  say  why 
Miss  Vance  called  on  them.  Mr.  Dryfoos  doesn't  em- 

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A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ploy  her  on  Every  Other  Week.  But  I  suppose  she  has 
her  own  vile  little  motive." 

"  It  can't  be  their  money;  it  can't  be  1"  sighed  Mrs. 
March. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.     We  all  respect  money." 

"  Yes,  but  Miss  Vance's  position  is  so  secure.  She 
needn't  pay  court  to  those  stupid,  vulgar  people." 

"  Well,  let's  console  ourselves  with  the  belief  that 
she  would,  if  she  needed.  Such  people  as  the  Dry- 
fooses  are  the  raw  material  of  good  society.  It  isn't 
made  up  of  refined  or  meritorious  people — professors 
anH  litterateurs,  ministers  and  musicians,  and  their 
families.  All  the  fashionable  people  there  to-night. 
were  likeTTie  Dryfooses  a  generation  or  two  ago.  I 
dare  say  the  material  works  up  faster  now,  and  in  a 
season  or  two  you  won't  know  the  Dryfooses  from  the 
other  plutocrats.  They  will — a  little  better  than  they 
do  now;  they'll  see  a  difference,  but  nothing  radical, 
nothing  painful.  People  who  get  up  in  the  world  by 
service  to  others — through  letters,  or  art,  or  science — 
may  have  their  modest  little  misgivings  as  to  their  so 
cial  value,  but  people  that  rise  by  money — especially  if 
their  gains  are  sudden — never  have.  And  that's  the 
kind  of  people  that  form  our  nobility;  there's  no  use 
pretending  that  we  haven't  a  nobility;  we  might  as 
well  pretend  we  haven't  first-class  cars  in  the  presence 
of  a  vestibuled  Pullman.  Those  girls  had  no  more 
doubt  of  their  right  to  be  there  than  if  they  had  been 
duchesses:  we  thought  it  was  very  nice  of  Miss  Vance 
to  come  and  ask  us,  but  they  didn't;  they  weren't 
afraid,  or  the  least  embarrassed;  they  were  perfectly 
natural — like  born  aristocrats.  And  you  may  be  sure 
that  if  the  plutocracy  that  now  owns  the  country  ever 
sees  fit  to  take  on  the  outward  signs  of  an  aristocracy 
— titles,  and  arms,  and  ancestors — it  won't  falter  from 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

any  inherent  question  of  its  worth.  Money  prizes  and 
honors  itself,  and  if  there  is  anything  it  hasn't  got,  it 
believes  it  can  buy  it." 

"  Well,  Basil,"  said  his  wife,  "  I  hope  you  won't 
get  infected  with  Lindau's  ideas  of  rich  people.  Some 
of  them  are  very  good  and  kind." 

"  Who  denies  that  ?  Not  even  Lindau  himself.  It's 
all  right.  And  the  great  thing  is  that  the  evening's 
enjoyment  is  over.  I've  got  my  society  smile  off,  and 
I'm  radiantly  happy.  Go  on  with  your  little  pessi 
mistic  diatribes,  Isabel;  you  can't  spoil  my  pleasure." 

"  I  could  see,"  said  Mela,  as  she  and  Christine  drove 
home  together,  "  that  she  was  as  jealous  as  she  could 
be,  all  the  time  you  was  talkun'  to  Mr.  Beaton.  She 
pretended  to  be  talkun'  to  Conrad,  but  she  kep'  her  eye 
on  you  pretty  close,  I  can  tell  you.  I  bet  she  just  got 
us  there  to  see  how  him  and  you  would  act  together. 
And  I  reckon  she  was  satisfied.  He's  dead  gone  on 
you,  Chris." 

Christine  listened  with  a  dreamy  pleasure  to  the 
flatteries  with  which  Mela  plied  her  in  the  hope  of 
some  return  in  kind,  and  not  at  all  because  she  felt 
spitefully  toward  Miss  Vance,  or  in  anywise  wished 
her  ill.  "  Who  was  that  fellow  with  you  so  long  ?" 
asked  Christine.  "  I  suppose  you  turned  yourself  in 
side  out  to  him,  like  you  always  do." 

Mela  was  transported  by  the  cruel  ingratitude. 
"  It's  a  lie !  I  didn't  tell  him  a  single  thing." 

Conrad  walked  home,  choosing  to  do  so  because  he 
did  not  wish  to  hear  his  sisters'  talk  of  the  evening, 
and  because  there  was  a  tumult  in  his  spirit  which 
he  wished  to  let  have  its  way.  In  his  life  with  its 
single  purpose,  defeated  by  stronger  wills  than  his  own, 

"321 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  now  struggling  partially  to  fulfil  itself  in  acts  of 
devotion  to  others,  the  thought  of  women  had  entered 
scarcely  more  than  in  that  of  a  child.  His  ideals  were 
of  a  virginal  vagueness;  faces,  voices,  gestures  had 
filled  his  fancy  at  times,  but  almost  passionately ;  and 
the  sensation  that  he  now  indulged  was  a  kind  of  wor 
ship,  ardent,  but  reverent  and  exalted.  The  brutal  ex 
periences  of  the  world  make  us  forget  that  there  are 
such  natures  in  it,  and  that  they  seem  to  come  up  out 
of  the  lowly  earth  as  well  as  down  from  the  high 
heaven.  In  the  heart  of  this  man  well  on  toward  thirty 
there  had  never  been  left  the  stain  of  a  base  thought; 
not  that  suggestion  and  conjecture  had  not  visited  him, 
but  that  he  had  not  entertained  them,  or  in  anywise 
made  them  his.  In  a  Catholic  age  and  country,  he 
would  have  been  one  of  those  monks  who  are  sainted 
after  death  for  the  angelic  purity  of  their  lives,  and 
whose  names  are  invoked  by  believers  in  moments  of 
trial,  like  San  Luigi  Gonzaga.  As  he  now  walked 
along  thinking,  with  a  lover's  beatified  smile  on  his 
face,  of  how  Margaret  Vance  had  spoken  and  looked, 
he  dramatized  scenes  in  which  he  approved  himself  to 
her  by  acts  of  goodness  and  unselfishness,  and  died  to 
please  her  for  the  sake  of  others.  He  made  her  praise 
him  for  them,  to  his  face,  when  he  disclaimed  their 
merit,  and  after  his  death,  when  he  could  not.  All  the 
time  he  was  poignantly  sensible  of  her  grace,  her  ele 
gance,  her  style;  they  seemed  to  intoxicate  him;  some 
tones  of  her  voice  thrilled  through  his  nerves,  and  some 
looks  turned  his  brain  with  a  delicious,  swooning  sense 
of  her  beauty;  her  refinement  bewildered  him.  But 
all  this  did  not  admit  the  idea  of  possession,  even  of 
aspiration.  At  the  most  his  worship  only  set  her  be 
yond  the  love  of  other  men  as  far  as  beyond  his  own. 


PART   FOURTH 


NOT  long  after  Lent,  Fulkerson  set  before  Dryfoos 
one  day  his  scheme  for  a  dinner  in  celebration  of  the 
success  of  Every  Other  Week.  Dryfoos  had  never  med 
dled  in  any  mariner  with  the  conduct  of  the  periodical ; 
but  Fulkerson  easily  saw  that  he  was  proud  of  his  re 
lation  to  it,  and  he  proceeded  upon  the  theory  that  he 
would  be  willing  to  have  this  relation  known.  On  the 
days  when  he  had  been  lucky  in  stocks,  he  was  apt  to 
drop  in  at  the  office  on  Eleventh  Street,  on  his  way 
up-town,  and  listen  to  Fulkerson's  talk.  He  was  on 
good  enough  terms  with  March,  who  revised  his  first 
impressions  of  the  man,  but  they  had  not  much  to  say 
to  each  other,  and  it  seemed  to  March  that  Dryfoos 
was  even  a  little  afraid  of  him,  as  of  a  piece  of  mechan 
ism  he  had  acquired,  but  did  not  quite  understand ;  he 
left  the  working  of  it  to  Fulkerson,  who  no  doubt 
bragged  of  it  sufficiently.  The  old  man  seemed  to 
have  as  little  to  say  to  his  son;  he  shut  himself  up 
with  Fulkerson,  where  the  others  could  hear  the  man 
ager  begin  and  go  on  with  an  unstinted  flow  of  talk 
about  Every  Other  Week;  for  Fulkerson  never  talked 
of  anything  else  if  he  could  help  it,  and  was  always 
bringing  the  conversation  back  to  it  if  it  strayed. 

The  day  he  spoke  of  the  dinner  he  rose  and  called 
from  his  door :  "  March,  I  say,  come  down  here  a  min 
ute,  will  you?  Conrad,  I  want  you,  too." 

The  editor  and  the  publisher  found  the  manager  and 

325 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

the  proprietor  seated  on  opposite  sides  of  the  table. 
"  It's  about  those  funeral  baked  meats,  you  know," 
Fulkerson  explained,  "  and  I  was  trying  to  give  Mr. 
Dryfoos  some  idea  of  what  we  wanted  to  do.  That 
is,  what  I  wanted  to  do,"  he  continued,  turning  from 
March  to  Dryfoos.  "  March,  here,  is  opposed  to  it,  of 
course.  He'd  like  to  publish  Every  Oilier  Week  on 
the  sly;  keep  it  out  of  the  papers,  and  off  the  news 
stands;  he's  a  modest  Boston  petunia,  and  he  shrinks 
from  publicity;  but  I  am  not  that  kind  of  herb  my 
self,  and  I  want  all  the  publicity  we  can  get — beg, 
borrow,  or  steal — for  this  thing.  I  say  that  you  can't 
work  the  sacred  rites  of  hospitality  in  a  better  cause, 
and  what  I  propose  is  a  little  dinner  for  the  purpose 
of  recognizing  the  hit  we've  made  with  this  thing.  My 
idea  was  to  strike  you  for  the  necessary  funds,  and  do 
the  thing  on  a  handsome  scale.  The  term  little  dinner 
is  a  mere  figure  of  speech.  A  little  dinner  wouldn't 
make  a  big  talk,  and  what  we  want  is  the  big  talk,  at 
present,  if  we  don't  lay  up  a  cent.  My  notion  was 
that  pretty  soon  after  Lent,  now,  when  everybody  is 
feeling  just  right,  we  should  begin  to  send  out  our 
paragraphs,  affirmative,  negative,  and  explanatory,  and 
along  about  the  first  of  May  we  should  sit  down  about 
a  hundred  strong,  the  most  distinguished  people  in  the 
country,  and  solemnize  our  triumph.  There  it  is  in 
a  nutshell.  I  might  expand  and  I  might  expound,  but 
that's  the  sum  and  substance  of  it." 

Fulkerson  stopped,  and  ran  his  eyes  eagerly  over 
the  faces  of  his  three  listeners,  one  after  the  other. 
March  was  a  little  surprised  when  Dryfoos  turned 
to  him,  but  that  reference  of  the  question  seemed  to 
give  Fulkerson  particular  pleasure :  "  What  do  you 
think,  Mr.  March?" 

The  editor  leaned  back  in  his  chair.     "  I  don't  pre- 
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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

tend  to  have  Mr.  Fulkerson's  genius  for  advertising; 
but  it  seems  to  me  a  little  early  yet.  We  might  cele 
brate  later  when  we've  got  more  to  celebrate.  At  pres 
ent  we're  a  pleasing  novelty,  rather  than  a  fixed  fact/7 

"  Ah,  you  don't  get  the  idea !"  said  Fulkerson. 
"  What  we  want  to  do  with  this  dinner  is  to  fix  the 
fact." 

"  Am  I  going  to  come  in  anywhere  ?"  the  old  man 
interrupted. 

"  You're  going  to  come  in  at  the  head  of  the  pro 
cession  !  We  are  going  to  strike  everything  that  is  im 
aginative  and  romantic  in  the  newspaper  soul  with  you 
and  your  history  and  your  fancy  for  going  in  for  this 
thing.  I  can  start  you  in  a  paragraph  that  will  travel 
through  all  the  newspapers,  from  Maine  to  Texas  and 
from  Alaska  to  Florida.  We  have  had  all  sorts  of  rich 
men  backing  up  literary  enterprises,  but  the  natural- 
gas  man  in  literature  is  a  new  thing,  and  the  com 
bination  of  your  picturesque  past  and  your  aesthetic 
present  is  something  that  will  knock  out  the  sym 
pathies  of  the  American  public  the  first  round.  I 
feel,"  said  Fulkerson,  with  a  tremor  of  pathos  in  his 
voice,  "  that  Every  Oilier  Week  is  at  a  disadvantage 
before  the  public  as  long  as  it's  supposed  to  be  my 
enterprise,  my  idea.  As  far  as  I'm  known  at  all,  I'm 
known  simply  as  a  syndicate  man,  and  nobody  in  the 
press  believes  that  I've  got  the  money  to  run  the  thing 
on  a  grand  scale;  a  suspicion  of  insolvency  must  at 
tach  to  it  sooner  or  later,  and  the  fellows  on  the  press 
will  work  up  that  impression,  sooner  or  later,  if  we 
don't  give  them  something  else  to  work  up.  Now,  as 
soon  as  I  begin  to  give  it  away  to  the  correspondents 
that  you  re  in  it,  with  your  imtold  millions — that,  in 
fact,  it  was  your  idea  from  the  start,  that  you  orig 
inated  it  to  give  full  play  to  the  humanitarian  ten- 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

dencies  of  Conrad  here,  who's  always  had  these  theories 
of  co-operation,  and  longed  to  realize  them  for  the  bene 
fit  of  our  struggling  young  writers  and  artists — 

March  had  listened  with  growing  amusement  to  the 
mingled  burlesque  and  earnest  of  Fulkerson's  self- 
sacrificing  impudence,  and  with  wonder  as  to  how  far 
Dryfoos  was  consenting  to  his  preposterous  proposi 
tion,  when  Conrad  broke  out :  "  Mr.  Fulkerson,  I  could 
not  allow  you  to  do  that.  It  would  not  be  true ;  I  did 
not  wish  to  be  here;  and — and  what  I  think — what  I 
wish  to  do — that  is  something  I  will  not  let  any  one 
put  me  in  a  false  position  about.  No!"  The  blood 
rushed  into  the  young  man's  gentle  face,  and  he  met 
his  father's  glance  with  defiance. 

Dryfoos  turned  from  him  to  Fulkerson  without 
speaking,  and  Fulkerson  said,  caressingly :  "  Why,  of 
course,  Coonrod  !  I  know  how  you  feel,  and  I  shouldn't 
let  anything  of  that  sort  go  out  uncontradicted  after- 
ward.  But  there  isn't  anything  in  these  times  that 
would  give  us  better  standing  with  the  public  than 
some  hint  of  the  way  you  feel  about  such  things.  The 
public  expects  to  be  interested,  and  nothing  would  in 
terest  it  more  than  to  be  told  that  the  success  of  Every 
Oilier  Week  sprang  from  the  first  application  of  the 
principle  of  Live  and  let  Liv-e  to  a  literary  enterprise. 
It  would  look  particularly  well,  coming  from  you  and 
your  father,  but  if  you  object,  we  can  leave  that  part 
out;  though  if  you  approve  of  the  principle  I  don't 
see  why  you  need  object.  The  main  thing  is  to  let  the 
public  know  that  it  owes  this  thing  to  the  liberal  and 
enlightened  spirit  of  one  of  the  foremost  capitalists  of 
the  country,  and  that  his  purposes  are  not  likely  to  be 
betrayed  in  the  hands  of  his  son.  I  should  get  a  little 
cut  made  from  a  photograph  of  your  father,  and  sup 
ply  it  gratis  with  the  paragraphs." 

328 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  guess,"  said  the  old  man,  "  we  will  get  along 
without  the  cut." 

Fulkerson  laughed.  "  Well,  well !  Have  it  your 
own  way.  But  the  sight  of  your  face  in  the  patent 
outsides  of  the  country  press  would  be  worth  half  a 
dozen  subscribers  in  every  school  district  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  this  fair  land." 

"  There  was  a  fellow,"  Dryfoos  explained,  in  an 
aside  to  March,  "  that  was  getting  up  a  history  of 
Moffitt,  and  he  asked  me  to  let  him  put  a  steel  en 
graving  of  me  in.  He  said  a  good  many  prominent 
citizens  were  going  to  have  theirs  in,  and  his  price  was 
a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  I  told  him  I  couldn't  let 
mine  go  for  less  than  two  hundred,  and  when  he  said 
he  could  give  me  a  splendid  plate  for  that  money,  I 
said  I  should  want  it  cash.  You  never  saw  a  fellow 
more  astonished  when  he  got  it  through  him  that  I 
expected  him  to  pay  the  two  hundred." 

Fulkerson  laughed  in  keen  appreciation  of  the  joke. 
"  Well,  sir,  I  guess  Every  Other  Week  will  pay  you 
that  much.  But  if  you  won't  sell  at  any  price,  all 
right;  we  must  try  to  worry  along  without  the  light 
of  your  countenance  on  the  posters,  but  we  got  to  have 
it  for  the  banquet." 

"  I  don't  seem  to  feel  very  hungry,  yet,"  said  the 
old  man,  dryly. 

"  Oh,  I'appetit  vient  en  mangeant,  as  our  French 
friends  say.  You'll  be  hungry  enough  when  you  see 
the  preliminary  Little  Neck  clam.  It's  too  late  for 
oysters." 

"  Doesn't  that  fact  seem  to  point  to  a  postponement 
till  they  get  back,  sometime  in  October,"  March  sug 
gested. 

"  N"o,  no !"  said  Fulkerson,  "  you  don't  catch  on 
to  the  business  end  of  this  thing,  my  friends.  You're 

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A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

proceeding  on  something  like  the  old  exploded  idea 
that  the  demand  creates  the  supply,  when  everybody 
knows,  if  he's  watched  the  course  of  modern  events, 
that  it's  just  as  apt  to  be  the  other  way.  I  contend 
that  we've  got  a  real  substantial  success  to  celebrate 
now;  but  even  if  we  hadn't,  the  celebration  would  do 
more  than  anything  else  to  create  the  success,  if  we  got 
it  properly  before  the  public.  People  will  say:  Those 
fellows  are  not  fools ;  they  wouldn't  go  and  rejoice  over 
their  magazine  unless  they  had  got  a  big  thing  in  it. 
And  the  state  of  feeling  we  should  produce  in  the 
public  mind  would  make  a  boom  of  perfectly  unprece 
dented  grandeur  for  E.  0.  W.  Heigh  ?" 

He  looked  sunnily  from  one  to  the  other  in  suc 
cession.  The  elder  Dryfoos  said,  with  his  chin  on  the 
top  of  his  stick,  "  I  reckon  those  Little  Neck  clams 
will  keep." 

"  Well,  just  as  you  say,"  Fulkerson  cheerfully  as 
sented.  "  I  understand  you  to  agree  to  the  general 
principle  of  a  little  dinner?" 

"  The  smaller  the  better,"  said  the  old  man. 

"  Well,  I  say  a  little  dinner  because  the  idea  of  that 
seems  to  cover  the  case,  even  if  we  vary  the  plan  a 
little.  I  had  thought  of  a  reception,  maybe,  that  would 
include  the  lady  contributors  and  artists,  and  the  wives 
and  daughters  of  the  other  contributors.  That  would 
give  us  the  chance  to  ring  in  a  lot  of  society  corre 
spondents  and  get  the  thing  written  up  in  first-class 
shape.  'Bj-ihe-way  /"  cried  Fulkerson,  slapping  him 
self  on  the  leg,  "  why  not  have  the  dinner  and  the 
reception  both?" 

"  I  don't  understand,"  said  Dryfoos. 

"  Why,  have  a  select  little  dinner  for  ten  or  twenty 
choice  spirits  of  the  male  persuasion,  and  then,  about 

ten  o'clock,  throw  open  your  palatial  drawing-rooms 

'330 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  admit  the  females  to  champagne,  salads,  and  ices. 
It  is  the  very  thing !     Come !" 

"  What  do  you  think  of  it,  Mr.  March  ?"  asked  Dry- 
foos,  on  whose  social  inexperience  Fulkerson's  words 
projected  no  very  intelligible  image,  and  who  perhaps 
hoped  for  some  more  light. 

"  It's  a  beautiful  vision,"  said  March,  "  and  if  it 
will  take  more  time  to  realize  it  I  think  I  approve. 
I  approve  of  anything  that  will  delay  Mr.  Fulkerson's 
advertising  orgie." 

"  Then,"  Fulkerson  pursued,  "  we  could  have  the 
pleasure  of  Miss  Christine  and  Miss  Mela's  company; 
and  maybe  Mrs.  Dryfoos  would  look  in  on  us  in  the 
course  of  the  evening.  There's  no  hurry,  as  Mr.  March 
suggests,  if  we  can  give  the  thing  this  shape.  I  will 
cheerfully  adopt  the  idea  of  my  honorable  colleague." 

March  laughed  at  his  impudence,  but  at  heart  he 
was  ashamed  of  Fulkerson  for  proposing  to  make  use 
of  Dryfoos  and  his  house  in  that  way.  He  fancied 
something  appealing  in  the  look  that  the  old  man  turn 
ed  on  him,  and  something  indignant  in  Conrad's  flush ; 
but  probably  this  was  only  his  fancy.  He  reflected  that 
neither  of  them  could  feel  it  as  people  of  more  worldly 
knowledge  would,  and  he  consoled  himself  with  the 
fact  that  Fulkerson  was  really  not  such  a  charlatan  as 
he  seemed.  But  it  went  through  his  mind  that  this  was 
a  strange  end  for  all  Dryfoos's  money-making  to  come 
to ;  and  he  philosophically  accepted  the  fact  of  his  own 
humble  fortunes  when  he  reflected  how  little  his  money 
could  buy  for  such  a  man.  It  was  an  honorable  use 
that  Fulkerson  was  putting  it  to  in  Every  Other  Week; 
it  might  be  far  more  creditably  spent  on  such  an  en 
terprise  than  on  horses,  or  wines,  or  women,  the  usual 
resources  of  the  brute  rich ;  and  if  it  were  to  be  lost,  it 

might  better  fee  lost  that  way  than  in  stocks.     He  kept 

331 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

a  smiling  face  turned  to  Dryfoos  while  these  irreverent 
considerations  occupied  him,  and  hardened  his  heart 
against  father  and  son  and  their  possible  emotions. 

The  old  man  rose  to  put  an  end  to  the  interview. 
He  only  repeated,  "  I  guess  those  clams  will  keep  till 
fall." 

But  Fulkerson  was  apparently  satisfied  with  the 
progress  he  had  made ;  and  Avhen  he  joined  March 
for  the  stroll  homeward  after  office  hours,  he  was  able 
to  detach  his  mind  from  the  subject,  as  if  content  to 
leave  it. 

"  This  is  about  the  best  part  of  the  year  in  New 
York,"  he  said.  In  some  of  the  areas  the  grass  had 
sprouted,  and  the  tender  young  foliage  had  loosened 
itself  from  the  buds  on  a  sidewalk  tree  here  and  there ; 
the  soft  air  was  full  of  spring,  and  the  delicate  sky, 
far  aloof,  had  the  look  it  never  wears  at  any  other 
season.  "  It  ain't  a  time  of  year  to  complain  much  of, 
anywhere;  but  I  don't  want  anything  better  than  the 
month  of  May  in  New  York.  Farther  South  it's  too 
hot,  and  I've  been  in  Boston  in  May  when  that  east 
wind  of  yours  made  every  nerve  in  my  body  get  up  and 
howl.  I  reckon  the  weather  has  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
the  local  temperament.  The  reason  a  New  York  man 
takes  life  so  easily  with  all  his  rush  is  that  his  climate 
don't  worry  him.  But  a  Boston  man  must  be  rasped 
the  whole  while  by  the  edge  in  his  air.  That  accounts 
for  his  sharpness ;  and  when  he's  lived  through  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  Boston  Mays,  he  gets  to  thinking  that 
Providence  has  some  particular  use  for  him,  or  he 
wouldn't  have  survived,  and  that  makes  him  conceited. 
See  ?" 

"  I  see,"  said  March.  "  But  I  don't  know  how 
you're  going  to  work  that  idea  into  an  advertisement, 
exactly." 

332 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh,  pshaw,  now,  March !  You  don't  think  I've 
got  that  on  the  brain  all  the  time  ?" 

"  You  were  gradually  leading  up  to  Every  Other 
Week,  somehow." 

"  No,  sir ;  I  wasn't.  I  was  just  thinking  what 
a  different  creature  a  Massachusetts  man  is  from  a 
Virginian.  And  yet  I  suppose  they're  both  as  pure 
English  stock  as  you'll  get  anywhere  in  America. 
March,  I  think  Colonel  Woodburn's  paper  is  going 
to  make  a  hit." 

"  You've  got  there !  When  it  knocks  down  the  sale 
about  one-half,  I  shall  know  it's  made  a  hit." 

"  I'm  not  afraid,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  That  thing  is 
going  to  attract  attention.  It's  well  written — you  can 
take  the  pomposity  out  of  it,  here  and  there — and  it's 
novel.  Our  people  like  a  bold  strike,  and  it's  going  to 
shake  them  up  tremendously  to  have  serfdom  advocated 
on  high  moral  grounds  as  the  only  solution  of  the  labor 
problem.  You  see,  in  the  first  place,  he  goes  for  their 
sympathies  by  the  way  he  portrays  the  actual  relations 
of  capital  and  labor;  he  shows  how  things  have  got  to 
go  from  bad  to  worse,  and  then  he  trots  out  his  little 
old  hobby,  and  proves  that  if  slavery  had  not  been  in 
terfered  with,  it  would  have  perfected  itself  in  the 
interest  of  humanity.  He  makes  a  pretty  strong  plea 
for  it." 

March  threw  back  his  head  and  laughed.  "  He's 
converted  you !  I  swear,  Fulkerson,  if  we  had  ac 
cepted  and  paid  for  an  article  advocating  cannibalism 
as  the  only  resource  for  getting  rid  of  the  superfluous 
poor,  you'd  begin  to  believe  in  it." 

Fulkerson  smiled  in  approval  of  the  joke,  and  only 
said :  "  I  wish  you  could  meet  the  colonel  in  the  privacy 
of  the  domestic  circle,  March.  You'd  like  him.  He's 
a  splendid  old  fellow ;  regular  type.  Talk  about  spring ! 

333 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

You  ought  to  see  the  widow's  little  back  yard  these 
days.  You  know  that  glass  gallery  just  beyond  the 
dining-room  ?  Those  girls  have  got  the  pot-plants  out 
of  that,  and  a  lot  more,  and  they've  turned  the  edges 
of  that  back  yard,  along  the  fence,  into  a  regular  bower ; 
they've  got  sweet  peas  planted,  and  nasturtiums,  and 
we  shall  be  in  a  blaze  of  glory  about  the  beginning  of 
eTune.  Fun  to  see  7em  work  in  the  garden,  and  the 
bird  bossing  the  job  in  his  cage  under  the  cherry-tree. 
Have  to  keep  the  middle  of  the  yard  for  the  clothes 
line,  but  six  days  in  the  week  it's  a  lawn,  and  I  go 
over  it  with  a  mower  myself.  March,  there  ain't  any 
thing  like  a  home,  is  there  ?  Dear  little  cot  of  your 
own,  heigh?  I  tell  you,  March,  when  I  get  to  push 
ing  that  mower  round,  and  the  colonel  is  smoking  his 
cigar  in  the  gallery,  and  those  girls  are  pottering  over 
the  flowers,  one  of  these  soft  evenings  after  dinner,  I 
feel  like  a  human  being.  Yes,  I  do.  I  struck  it  rich 
when  I  concluded  to  take  my  meals  at  the  widow's. 
For  eight  dollars  a  week  I  get  good  board,  refined 
society,  and  all  the  advantages  of  a  Christian  home. 
By-the-way,  you've  never  had  much  talk  with  Miss 
Woodburn,  have  you,  March?" 

"  Not  so  much  as  with  Miss  Woodburn's  father." 

"  Well,  he  is  rather  apt  to  scoop  the  conversation. 
I  must  draw  his  fire,  sometime,  when  you  and  Mrs. 
March  are  around,  and  get  you  a  chance  with  Miss 
Woodburn." 

"  I  should  like  that  better,  T  believe,"  said  March. 

"  Well,  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  you  did.  Curious, 
but  Miss  Woodburn  isn't  at  all  your  idea  of  a  South 
ern  girl.  She's  got  lots  of  go;  she's  never  idle  a  min 
ute;  she  keeps  the  old  gentleman  in  first-class  shape, 
and  she  don't  believe  a  bit  in  the  slavery  solution  of  the 
labor  problem;  says  she's  glad  it's  gone,  and  if  it's 

334 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

anything  like  the  effects  of  it,  she's  glad  it  went  be 
fore  her  time.  No,  sir,  she's  as  full  of  snap  as  the 
liveliest  kind  of  a  Northern  girl.  None  of  that  sunny 
Southern  languor  you  read  about." 

"  I  suppose  the  typical  Southerner,  like  the  typical 
anything  else,  is  pretty  difficult  to  find,"  said  March. 
"  But  perhaps  Miss  Woodburn  represents  the  new 
South.  The  modern  conditions  must  be  producing  a 
modern  type." 

"  Well,  that's  what  she  and  the  colonel  both  say. 
They  say  there  ain't  anything  left  of  that  Walter 
Scott  dignity  and  chivalry  in  the  rising  generation; 
takes  too  much  time.  You  ought  to  see  her  sketch 
the  old-school,  high-and-mighty  manners,  as  they  sur 
vive  among  some  of  the  antiques  in  Charlottesburg. 
If  that  thing  could  be  put  upon  the  stage  it  would 
be  a  killing  success.  Makes  the  old  gentleman  laugh 
in  spite  of  himself.  But  he's  as  proud  of  her  as  Punch, 
anyway.  Why  don't  you  and  Mrs.  March  come  round 
oftener  ?  Look  here !  How  would  it  do  to  have  a 
little  excursion,  somewhere,  after  the  spring  fairly  gets 
in  its  work  ?" 

"  Reporters  present  ?" 

"  No,  no !  Nothing  of  that  kind ;  perfectly  sincere 
and  dinterested  enjoyment." 

"  Oh,  a  few  handbills  to  be  scattered  around :  '  Buy 
Ev-ery  Other  Week?  i  Look  out  for  the  next  number 
of  Every  Other  Week?  l  Every  Other  Week  at  all  the 
news-stands.'  Well,  I'll  talk  it  over  with  Mrs.  March. 
I  suppose  there's  no  great  hurry." 

March  told  his  wife  of  the  idyllic  mood  in  which 
he  had  left  Fulkerson  at  the  widow's  door,  and  she 
said  he  must  be  in  love. 

"  Why,  of  course !  I  wonder  I  didn't  think  of  that. 
But  Fulkerson  is  such  an  impartial  admirer  of  the. 

335 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

whole  sex  that  you  can't  think  of  his  liking  one  more 
than  another.  I  don't  know  that  he  showed  any  un 
just  partiality,  though,  in  his  talk  of  '  those  girls,'  as 
he  called  them.  And  I  always  rather  fancied  that 
Mrs.  Mandel — he's  done  so  much  for  her,  you  know; 
and  she  is  such  a  well-balanced,  well-preserved  person, 
and  so  lady-like  and  correct — " 

"  Fulkerson  had  the  word  for  her :  academic.  She's 
everything  that  instruction  and  discipline  can  make  of 
a  woman;  but  I  shouldn't  think  they  could  make 
enough  of  her  to  be  in  love  with." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  The  academic  has  its  charm. 
There  are  moods  in  which  I  could  imagine  myself  in 
love  with  an  academic  person.  That  regularity  of  line ; 
that  reasoned  strictness  of  contour;  that  neatness  of 
pose ;  that  slightly  conventional  but  harmonious  group 
ing  of  the  emotions  and  morals — you  can  see  how  it 
would  have  its  charm,  the  Wedgwood  in  human  nat 
ure  ?  I  wonder  where  Mrs.  Mandel  keeps  her  urn 
and  her  willow." 

"  I  should  think  she  might  have  use  for  them  in  that 
family,  poor  thing!"  said  Mrs.  March. 

"  Ah,  that  reminds  me,"  said  her  husband,  "  that  we 
had  another  talk  with  the  old  gentleman,  this  after 
noon,  about  Fulkerson's  literary,  artistic,  and  adver 
tising  orgie,  and  it's  postponed  till  October." 

"  The  later  the  better,  I  should  think,"  said  Mrs. 
March,  who  did  not  really  think  about  it  at  all, 
but  whom  the  date  fixed  for  it  caused  to  think  of 
the  intervening  time.  "  We  have  got  to  consider 
what  we  will  do  about  the  summer,  before  long, 
Basil." 

"  Oh,  not  yet,  not  yet,"  he  pleaded,  with  that  man's 
willingness  to  abide  in  the  present,  which  is  so  trying 
to  a  woman.  "  It's  only  the  end  of  April." 

336 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  It  will  be  the  end  of  June  before  we  know.  And 
these  people  wanting  the  Boston  house  another  year 
complicates  it.  We  can't  spend  the  summer  there,  as 
we  planned.'7 

"  They  oughtn't  to  have  offered  us  an  increased  rent ; 
they  have  taken  an  advantage  of  us." 

"  I  don't  know  that  it  matters,"  said  Mrs.  March. 
"  I  had  decided  not  to  go  there." 

"  Had  you  ?    This  is  a  surprise." 

"  Everything  is  a  surprise  to  you,  Basil,  when  it 
happens." 

"  True ;  I  keep  the  world  fresh,  that  way." 

"  It  wouldn't  have  been  any  change  to  go  from  one 
city  to  another  for  the  summer.  We  might  as  well 
have  stayed  in  New  York." 

"  Yes,  I  wish  we  had  stayed,"  said  March,  idly 
humoring  a  conception  of  the  accomplished  fact. 
"  Mrs.  Green  would  have  let  us  have  the  gimcrackery 
very  cheap  for  the  summer  months ;  and  we  could  have 
made  all  sorts  of  nice  little  excursions  and  trips  off, 
and  been  twice  as  well  as  if  we  had  spent  the  summer 
away." 

"  Nonsense !  You  know  we  couldn't  spend  the  sum 
mer  in  New  York." 

"  I  know  /  could." 

"  What  stuff !     You  couldn't  manage." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  could.  I  could  take  my  meals  at  Ful- 
kerson's  widow's ;  or  at  Maroni's,  with  poor  old  Lindau : 
he's  got  to  dining  there  again.  Or,  I  could  keep  house, 
and  he  could  dine  with  me  here." 

There  was  a  teasing  look  in  March's  eyes,  and  he 
broke  into  a  laugh,  at  the  firmness  with  which  his  wife 
said :  "  I  think  if  there  is  to  be  any  housekeeping,  I 
will  stay,  too;  and  help  to  look  after  it.  I  would  try 
not  intrude  upon  you  and  your  guest." 

337 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh,  we  should  be  only  too  glad  to  have  you  join 
us/'  said  March,  playing  with  fire. 

"  Very  well,  then,  I  wish  you  would  take  him  off 
to  Maroni's,  the  next  time  he  comes  to  dine  here !" 
cried  his  wife. 

The  experiment  of  making  March's  old  friend  free 
of  his  house  had  not  given  her  all  the  pleasure  that 
so  kind  a  thing  ought  to  have  afforded  so  good  a  woman. 
She  received  Lindau  at  first  with  robust  benevolence, 
and  the  high  resolve  not  to  let  any  of  his  little  pe 
culiarities  alienate  her  from  a  sense  of  his  claim  upon 
her  sympathy  and  gratitude,  not  only  as  a  man  who 
had  been  so  generously  fond  of  her  husband  in  his 
youth,  but  a  hero  who  had  suffered  for  her  country. 
Her  theory  was  that  his  mutilation  must  not  be  ig 
nored,  but  must  be  kept  in  mind  as  a  monument  of 
his  sacrifice,  and  she  fortified  Bella  with  this  con 
ception,  so  that  the  child  bravely  sat  next  his  maimed 
arm  at  table  and  helped  him  to  dishes  he  could  not 
reach,  and  cut  up  his  meat  for  him.  As  for  Mrs. 
March  herself,  the  thought  of  his  mutilation  made  her 
a  little  faint ;  she  was  not  without  a  bewildered  resent 
ment  of  its  presence  as  a  sort  of  oppression.  She  did 
not  like  his  drinking  so  much  of  March's  beer,  either; 
it  was  no  harm,  but  it  was  somehow  unworthy,  out  of 
character  with  a  hero  of  the  war.  But  what  she  really 
could  not  reconcile  herself  to  was  the  violence  of  Lin- 
dau's  sentiments  concerning  the  whole  political  and 
social  fabric.  She  did  not  feel  sure  that  he  should  be 
allowed  to  say  such  things  before  the  children,  who 
had  been  nurtured  in  the  faith  of  Bunker  Hill  and 
Appomattox,  as  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  pos 
sible  progress  in  human  rights.  As  a  woman  she  was 
naturally  an  aristocrat,  but  as  an  American  she  was 
theoretically  a  democrat ;  and  it  astounded,  it  alarmed 

338 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

her,  to  hear  American  democracy  denounced  as  a 
shuffling  evasion.  She  had  never  cared  much  for  the 
United  States  Senate,  but  she  doubted  if  she  ought  to 
sit  by  when  it  was  railed  at  as  a  rich  man's  club.  It 
shocked  her  to  be  told  that  the  rich  and  poor  were  not 
equal  before  the  law  in  a  country  where  justice  must 
be  paid  for  at  every  step  in  fees  and  costs,  or  where 
a  poor  man  must  go  to  war  in  his  own  person,  and  a 
rich  man  might  hire  some  one  to  go  in  his.  Mrs. 
March  felt  that  this  rebellious  mind  in  Lindau  really 
somehow  outlawed  him  from  sympathy,  and  retro 
actively  undid  his  past  suffering  for  the  country:  she 
had  always  particularly  valued  that  provision  of  the 
law,  because  in  forecasting  all  the  possible  mischances 
that  might  befall  her  own  son,  she  had  been  comforted 
by  the  thought  that  if  there  ever  was  another  war,  and 
Tom  were  drafted,  his  father  could  buy  him  a  sub 
stitute.  Compared  with  such  blasphemy  as  this,  Lin- 
dau's  declaration  that  there  was  not  equality  of  op 
portunity  in  America,  and  that  fully  one-half  the  people 
were  debarred  their  right  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness  by 
the  hopeless  conditions  of  their  lives,  was  flattering 
praise.  She  could  not  listen  to  such  things  in  silence, 
though,  and  it  did  not  help  matters  when  Lindau  met 
her  arguments  with  facts  and  reasons  which  she  felt 
she  was  merely  not  sufficiently  instructed  to  combat, 
and  he  was  not  quite  gentlemanly  to  urge.  "  I  am 
afraid  for  the  effect  on  the  children,"  she  said  to  her 
husband.  "  Such  perfectly  distorted  ideas — Tom  will 
be  ruined  by  them." 

"  Oh,  let  Tom  find  out  where  they're  false,"  said 
March.  "  It  will  be  good  exercise  for  his  faculties 
of  research.  At  any  rate,  those  things  are  getting 
said  nowadays;  he'll  have  to  hear  them  sooner  or 
later." 

23  339 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Had  he  better  hear  them  at  home  ?"  demanded  his 
wife. 

"  Why,  you  know,  as  you're  here  to  refute  them, 
Isabel/'  he  teased,  "  perhaps  it's  the  best  place.  But 
don't  mind  poor  old  Lindau,  my  dear.  He  says  him 
self  that  his  parg  is  worse  than  his  pidte,  you  know." 

"  Ah,  it's  too  late  now  to  mind  him,"  she  sighed. 
In  a  moment  of  rash  good  feeling,  or  perhaps  an  ex 
alted  conception  of  duty,  she  had  herself  proposed  that 
Lindau  should  come  every  week  and  read  German  with 
Tom;  and  it  had  become  a  question  first  how  they 
could  get  him  to  take  pay  for  it,  and  then  how  they 
could  get  him  to  stop  it.  Mrs.  March  never  ceased  to 
wonder  at  herself  for  having  brought  this  about,  for 
she  had  warned  her  husband  against  making  any  en 
gagement  with  Lindau  which  would  bring  him  regular 
ly  to  the  house:  the  Germans  stuck  so,  and  were  so 
unscrupulously  dependent.  Yet,  the  deed  being  done, 
she  would  not  ignore  the  duty  of  hospitality,  and  it 
was  always  she  who  made  the  old  man  stay  to  their 
Sunday-evening  tea  when  he  lingered  near  the  hour, 
reading  Schiller  and  Heine  and  Uhland  with  the  boy, 
in  the  clean  shirt  with  which  he  observed  the  day; 
Lindau's  linen  was  not  to  be  trusted  during  the  week. 
She  now  concluded  a  season  of  mournful  reflection  by 
saying,  "  He  will  get  you  into  trouble,  somehow,  Basil/' 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  how,  exactly.  I  regard  Lindau 
as  a  political  economist  of  an  unusual  type ;  but  I  shall 
not  let  him  array  me  against  the  constituted  authori 
ties.  Short  of  that,  I  think  I  am  safe." 

"  Well,  be  careful,  Basil ;  be  careful.  You  know 
you  are  so  rash." 

"  I  suppose  I  may  continue  to  pity  him  ?  He  is 
such  a  poor,  lonely  old  fellow.  Are  you  really  sorry 
he's  come  into  our  lives,  my  dear?" 

340 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FOBTUNES 

"  No,  no ;  not  that.  I  feel  as  you  do  about  it ;  but 
I  wish  I  felt  easier  about  him — sure,  that  is,  that  we're 
not  doing  wrong  to  let  him  keep  on  talking  so." 

"  I  suspect  we  couldn't  help  it,"  March  returned, 
lightly.  "  It's  one  of  what  Lindau  calls  his  '  brin- 
cibles  '  to  say  what  he  thinks." 


II 


THE  Marches  had  no  longer  the  gross  appetite  for 
novelty  which  urges  youth  to  a  surfeit  of  strange 
scenes,  experiences,  ideas ;  and  makes  travel,  with  all 
its  annoyances  and  fatigues,  an  inexhaustible  delight. 
But  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  chief  pleasure  of  their 
life  in  New  York  was  from  its  quality  of  f oreignness : 
the  flavor  of  olives,  which,  once  tasted,  can  never  be 
forgotten.  The  olives  may  not  be  of  the  first  excellence ; 
they  may  be  a  little  stale,  and  small  and  poor,  to  be 
gin  with,  but  they  are  still  olives,  and  the  fond  palate 
craves  them.  The  sort  which  grew  in  New  York,  on 
lower  Sixth  Avenue  and  in  the  region  of  Jefferson 
Market  and  on  the  soft  exposures  south  of  Washing 
ton  Square,  were  none  the  less  acceptable  because  they 
were  of  the  commonest  Italian  variety. 

The  Marches  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  and  money 
in  a  grocery  of  that  nationality,  where  they  found 
all  the  patriotic  comestibles  and  potables,  and  renewed 
their  faded  Italian  with  the  friendly  family  in  charge. 
Italian  table  cPhotes  formed  the  adventure  of  the  week, 
on  the  day  when  Mrs.  March  let  her  domestics  go  out, 
and  went  herself  to  dine  abroad  with  her  husband  and 
children;  and  they  became  adepts  in  the  restaurants 
where  they  were  served,  and  which  they  varied  almost 
from  dinner  to  dinner.  The  perfect  decorum  of  these 
places,  and  their  immunity  from  offence  in  any,  em 
boldened  the  Marches  to  experiment  in  Spanish  restau- 

342 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

rants,  where  red  pepper  and  beans  insisted  in  every 
dinner,  and  where  once  they  chanced  upon  a  night  of 
olla  podrida,  with  such  appeals  to  March's  memory  of 
a  boyish  ambition  to  taste  the  dish  that  he  became 
poetic  and  then  pensive  over  its  cabbage  and  carrots, 
peas  and  bacon.  For  a  rare  combination  of  interna 
tional  motives  they  prized  most  the  table  d'hote  of  a 
.French  lady,  who  had  taken  a  Spanish  husband  in  a 
second  marriage,  and  had  a  Cuban  negro  for  her  cook, 
with  a  cross-eyed  Alsation  for  waiter,  and  a  slim  young 
South-American  for  cashier.  March  held  that  some 
thing  of  the  catholic  character  of  these  relations  ex 
pressed  itself  in  the  generous  and  tolerant  variety  of 
the  dinner,  which  was  singularly  abundant  for  fifty 
cents,  without  wine.  At  one  very  neat  French  place 
he  got  a  dinner  at  the  same  price  with  wine,  but  it  was 
not  so  abundant;  and  March  inquired  in  fruitless 
speculation  why  the  table  d'hote  of  the  Italians,  a 
notoriously  frugal  and  abstemious  people,  should  be 
usually  more  than  you  wanted  at  seventy-five  cents 
and  a  dollar,  and  that  of  the  French  rather  less  at 
half  a  dollar.  He  could  not  see  that  the  frequenters 
were  greatly  different  at  the  different  places ;  they  were 
mostly  Americans,  of  subdued  manners  and  conjectur- 
ably  subdued  fortunes,  with  here  and  there  a  table  full 
of  foreigners.  There  was  no  noise  and  not  much  smok 
ing  anywhere;  March  liked  going  to  that  neat  French 
place  because  there  Madame  sat  enthroned  and  high 
behind  a  comptoir  at  one  side  of  the  room,  and  every 
body  saluted  her  in  going  out.  It  was  there  that  a 
gentle-looking  young  couple  used  to  dine,  in  whom  the 
Marches  became  effectlessly  interested,  because  they 
Ihought  they  looked  like  that  when  they  were  young. 
The  wife  had  an  aesthetic  dress,  and  defined  her 

pretty  head  by  wearing  her  back-hair  pulled  up  very 

343 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

tight  under  her  bonnet;  the  husband  had  dreamy  eyes 
set  wide  apart  under  a  pure  forehead.  "  They  are 
artists,  August,  I  think,"  March  suggested  to  the 
waiter,  when  lie  had  vainly  asked  about  them.  "  Oh, 
hartis,  cedenly,"  August  consented;  but  Heaven  knows 
whether  they  were,  or  what  they  were:  March  never 
learned. 

This  immunity  from  acquaintance,  this  touch-and- 
go  quality  in  their  New  York  sojourn,  this  almost  loss 
of  individuality  at  times,  after  the  intense  identifica 
tion  of  their  Boston  life,  was  a  relief,  though  Mrs. 
March  had  her  misgivings,  and  questioned  whether  it 
were  not  perhaps  too  relaxing  to  the  moral  fibre. 
March  refused  to  explore  his  conscience ;  he  allowed 
that  it  might  be  so ;  but  he  said  he  liked  now  and  then 
to  feel  his  personality  in  that  state  of  solution.  They 
went  and  sat  a  good  deal  in  the  softening  evenings 
among  the  infants  and  dotards  of  Latin  extraction  in 
Washington  Square,  safe  from  all  who  ever  knew  them, 
and  enjoyed  the  advancing  season,  which  thickened  the 
foliage  of  the  trees  and  flattered  out  of  sight  the  church 
warden's  Gothic  of  the  University  Building.  The  in 
fants  were  sometimes  cross,  and  cried  in  their  weary 
mothers'  or  little  sisters'  arms;  but  they  did  not  dis 
turb  the  dotards,  who  slept,  some  with  their  heads 
fallen  forward,  and  some  with  their  heads  fallen  back ; 
March  arbitrarily  distinguished  those  with  the  droop 
ing  faces  as  tipsy  and  ashamed  to  confront  the  public. 
The  small  Italian  children  raced  Tip  and  down  the 
asphalt  paths,  playing  American  games  of  tag  and  hide- 
and-whoop ;  larger  boys  passed  ball,  in  training  for  po 
tential  championships.  The  Marches  sat  and  mused,  or 
quarrelled  fitfully  about  where  they  should  spend  the 
summer,  like  sparrows,  he  once  said,  till  the  electric 
lights  began  to  show  distinctly  among  the  leaves,  and 

344 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

they  looked  round  and  found  the  infants  and  dotards 
gone  and  the  benches  filled  with  lovers.  That  was  the 
signal  for  the  Marches  to  go  home.  He  said  that  the 
spectacle  of  so  much  courtship  as  the  eye  might  take 
in  there  at  a  glance  was  not,  perhaps,  oppressive,  but 
the  thought  that  at  the  same  hour  the  same  thing  was 
going  on  all  over  the  country,  wherever  two  young 
fools  could  get  together,  was  more  than  he  could  bear; 
he  did  not  deny  that  it  was  natural,  and,  in  a  measure, 
authorized,  but  he  declared  that  it  was  hackneyed ;  and 
the  fact  that  it  must  go  on  forever,  as  long  as  the  race 
lasted,  made  him  tired. 

At  home,  generally,  they  found  that  the  children  had 
not  missed  them,  and  were  perfectly  safe.  It  was  one 
of  the  advantages  of  a  flat  that  they  could  leave  the 
children  there  whenever  they  liked  without  anxiety. 
They  liked  better  staying  there  than  wandering  about 
in  the  evening  with  their  parents,  whose  excursions 
seemed  to  them  somewhat  aimless,  and  their  pleasures 
insipid.  They  studied,  or  read,  or  looked  out  of  the 
window  at  the  street  sights;  and  their  mother  always 
came  back  to  them  with  a  pang  for  their  lonesomeness. 
Bella  knew  some  little  girls  in  the  house,  but  in  a 
ceremonious  way;  Tom  had  formed  no  friendships 
among  the  boys  at  school  such  as  he  had  left  in  Bos 
ton;  as  nearly  as  he  could  explain,  the  New  York  fel 
lows  carried  canes  at  an  age  when  they  would  have  had 
them  broken  for  them  by  the  other  boys  at  Boston ;  and 
they  were  both  sissyish  and  fast.  It  was  probably 
prejudice;  he  never  could  say  exactly  what  their  de 
merits  were,  and  neither  he  nor  Bella  was  apparently 
so  homesick  as  they  pretended,  though  they  answered 
inquirers,  the  one  that  New  York  \vas  a  hole,  and  the 
other  that  it  was  horrid,  and  that  all  they  lived  for 
was  to  get  back  to  Boston.  In  the  mean  time  they 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

were  thrown  much  upon  each  other  for  society,  which 
March  said  was  well  for  both  of  them;  he  did  not 
mind  their  cultivating  a  little  gloom  and  the  sense  of 
a  common  wrong;  it  made  them  better  comrades,  and 
it  was  providing  them  with  amusing  reminiscences  for 
the  future.  They  really  enjoyed  Bohemianizing  in 
that  harmless  way:  though  Tom  had  his  doubts  of  its 
respectability ;  he  was  very  punctilious  about  his  sister, 
and  went  round  from  his  own  school  every  day  to  fetch 
her  home  from  hers.  The  whole  family  went  to  the 
theatre  a  good  deal,  and  enjoyed  themselves  together  in 
their  desultory  explorations  of  the  city. 

They  lived  near  Greenwich  \7illage,  and  March  liked 
strolling  through  its  quaintness  toward  the  waterside 
on  a  Sunday,  when  a  hereditary  Sabbatarianism  kept 
his  wife  at  home;  he  made  her  observe  that  it  even 
kept  her  at  home  from  church.  He  found  a  lingering 
quality  of  pure  Americanism  in  the  region,  and  he 
said  the  very  bells  called  to  worship  in  a  nasal  tone. 
He  liked  the  streets  of  small  brick  houses,  with  here 
and  there  one  painted  red,  and  the  mortar  lines  picked 
out  in  white,  and  with  now  and  then  a  fine  wooden 
portal  of  fluted  pillars  and  a  bowed  transom.  The 
rear  of  the  tenement  -  houses  showed  him  the  pictu- 
resqueness  of  clothes  -  lines  fluttering  far  aloft,  as  in 
Florence ;  and  the  new  apartment-houses,  breaking  the 
old  sky-line  with  their  towering  stories,  implied  a  life 
as  alien  to  the  American  manner  as  anything  in  con 
tinental  Europe.  In  fact,  foreign  faces  and  foreign 
tongues  prevailed  in  Greenwich  Village,  but  no  longer 
German  or  even  Irish  tongues  or  faces.  The  eyes  and 
earrings  of  Italians  twinkled  in  and  out  of  the  alley 
ways  and  basements,  and  they  seemed  to  abound  even 
in  the  streets,  where  long  ranks  of  trucks  drawn  up 
in  Sunday  rest  alone:  the  curbstones  suggested  the  pres- 

346 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ence  of  a  race  of  sturdier  strength  than  theirs.  March 
liked  the  swarthy,  strange  visages;  he  found  nothing 
menacing  for  the  future  in  them;  for  wickedness  he 
had  to  satisfy  himself  as  he  could  with  the  sneering, 
insolent,  clean-shaven  mug  of  some  rare  American  of 
the  b'hoy  type,  now  almost  as  extinct  in  New  York  as 
the  dodo  or  the  volunteer  fireman.  When  he  had  found 
his  way,  among  the  ash-barrels  and  the  groups  of  de 
cently  dressed  church-goers,  to  the  docks,  he  experi 
enced  a  sufficient  excitement  in  the  recent  arrival  of 
a  French  steamer,  whose  sheds  were  thronged  with 
hacks  and  express-wagons,  and  in  a  tacit  inquiry  into 
the  emotions  of  the  passengers,  fresh  from  the  cleanli 
ness  of  Paris,  and  now  driving  up  through  the  filth  of 
those  streets. 

Some  of  the  streets  were  filthier  than  others;  there 
was  at  least  a  choice;  there  were  boxes  and  barrels  of 
kitchen  offal  on  all  the  sidewalks,  but  not  everywhere 
manure-heaps,  and  in  some  places  the  stench  was  mixed 
with  the  more  savory  smell  of  cooking.  One  Sunday 
morning,  before  the  winter  was  quite  gone,  the  sight 
of  the  frozen  refuse  melting  in  heaps,  and  particularly 
the  loathsome  edges  of  the  rotting  ice  near  the  gutters, 
with  the  strata  of  waste-paper  and  straw  litter,  and 
egg  -  shells  and  orange  -  peel,  potato  -  skins  and  cigar- 
stumps,  made  him  unhappy.  He  gave  a  whimsical 
shrug  for  the  squalor  of  the  neighboring  houses,  and 
said  to  himself  rather  than  the  boy  who  was  with  him : 
"  It's  curious,  isn't  it,  how  fond  the  poor  people  are  of 
these  unpleasant  thoroughfares  ?  You  always  find  them 
living  in  the  worst  streets." 

"  The  burden  of  all  the  wrong  in  the  world  comes 
on  the  poor,"  said  the  boy.  "Every  sort  of  fraud 
and  swindling  hurts  them  the  worst.  The  city  wastes 
the  money  it's  paid  to  clean  the  streets  with,  and  the 

347 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

poor  Lave  to  suffer,  for  they  can't  afford  to  pay  twice, 
like  the  rich." 

March  stopped  short.  "  Hallo,  Tom !  Is  that  your 
wisdom  ?" 

"  It's  what  Mr.  Lindau  says/'  answered  the  boy, 
doggedly,  as  if  not  pleased  to  have  his  ideas  mocked 
at,  even  if  they  were  second-hand. 

"  And  you  didn't  tell  him  that  the  poor  lived  in 
dirty  streets  because  they  liked  them,  and  were  too 
lazy  and  worthless  to  have  them  cleaned  ?" 

"No;  I  didn't." 

"  I'm  surprised.  What  do  you  think  of  Lindau, 
generally  speaking,  Tom?'7 

"  Well,  sir,  I  don't  like  the  way  he  talks  about  some 
things.  I  don't  suppose  this  country  is  perfect,  but  I 
think  it's  about  the  best  there  is,  and  it  don't  do  any 
good  to  look  at  its  drawbacks  all  the  time." 

"  Sound,  my  son,"  said  March,  putting  his  hand  on 
the  boy's  shoulder  and  beginning  to  walk  on.  "  Well  'I" 

"  Well,  then,  he  says  that  it  isn't  the  public  frauds 
only  that  the  poor  have  to  pay  for,  but  they  have  to 
pay  for  all  the  vices  of  the  rich ;  that  when  a  speculator 
fails,  or  a  bank  cashier  defaults,  or  a  firm  suspends,  or 
hard  times  come,  it's  the  poor  who  have  to  give  up 
necessaries  where  the  rich  give  up  luxuries." 

"  Well,  well !     And  then  ?" 

"  Well,  then  I  think  the  crank  comes  in,  in  Mr. 
Lindau.  He  says  there's  no  need  of  failures  or  frauds 
or  hard  times.  It's  ridiculous.  There  always  have 
been  and  there  always  will  be.  But  if  you  tell  him 
that,  it  seems  to  make  him  perfectly  furious." 

March  repeated  the  substance  of  this  talk  to  his  wife. 
"  I'm  glad  to  know  that  Tom  can  see  through  such 
ravings.  He  has  lots  of  good  common  sense." 

It  was  the  afternoon  of  the  same  Sunday,  and  they 

348 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

were  sauntering  up  Fifth  Avenue,  and  admiring  the 
wide  old  douhle  houses  at  the  lower  end;  at  one  corner 
they  got  a  distinct  pleasure  out  of  the  gnarled  elbows 
that  a  pollarded  wistaria  leaned  upon  the  top  of  a 
garden  wall — for  its  convenience  in  looking  into  the 
street,  he  said.  The  line  of  these  comfortable  dwell 
ings,  once  so  fashionable,  was  continually  broken  by 
the  facades  of  shops;  and  March  professed  himself 
vulgarized  by  a  want  of  style  in  the  people  they  met 
in  their  walk  to  Twenty-third  Street. 

"  Take  me  somewhere  to  meet  my  fellow-exclusives, 
Isabel,"  he  demanded.  "  I  pine  for  the  society  of  my 
peers." 

He  hailed  a  passing  omnibus,  and  made  his  wife 
get  on  the  roof  with  him.  "  Think  of  our  doing  such 
a  thing  in  Boston!"  she  sighed,  with  a  little  shiver  of 
satisfaction  in  her  immunity  from  recognition  and 
comment. 

"  You  wouldn't  be  afraid  to  do  it  in  London  or 
Paris  ?" 

"  No ;  we  should  be  strangers  there — just  as  we  are 
in  !N"ew  York.  1  wronder  how  long  one  could  be  a 
stranger  here." 

"  Oh,  indefinitely,  in  our  way  of  living.  The  place 
is  really  vast,  so  much  larger  than  it  used  to  seem,  and 
so  heterogeneous." 

When  they  got  down  very  far  up-town,  and  began  to 
walk  back  by  Madison  Avenue,  they  found  themselves 
in  a  different  population  from  that  they  dwelt  among; 
not  heterogeneous  at  all ;  very  homogeneous,  and  almost 
purely  American ;  the  only  qualification  was  American 
Hebrew.  Such  a  well  -  dressed,  well  -  satisfied,  well- 
fed  looking  crowd  poured  down  the  broad  sidewalks 
before  the  handsome,  stupid  houses  that  March  could 
easily  pretend  he  had  got  among  his  fellow-plutocrats 

349 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

at  last.  Still  he  expressed  his  doubts  whether  this 
Sunday  afternoon  parade,  which  seemed  to  be  a  thing 
of  custom,  represented  the  best  form  among  the  young 
people  of  that  region;  he  wished  he  knew;  he  blamed 
himself  for  becoming  of  a  fastidious  conjecture;  he 
could  not  deny  the  fashion  and  the  richness  and  the 
indigeneity  of  the  spectacle;  the  promenaders  looked 
!N"ew-Yorky;  they  were  the  sort  of  people  whom  you 
would  know  for  New-Yorkers  elsewhere,  so  well  equip 
ped  and  so  perfectly  kept  at  all  points.  Their  silk 
hats  shone,  and  their  boots ;  their  frocks  had  the  right 
distension  behind,  and  their  bonnets  perfect  poise  and 
distinction. 

The  Marches  talked  of  these  and  other  facts  of  their 
appearance,  and  curiously  questioned  whether  this  were 
the  best  that  a  great  material  civilization  could  come 
to;  it  looked  a  little  dull.  The  men's  faces  were 
shrewd  and  alert,  and  yet  they  looked  dull;  the  wom 
en's  were  pretty  and  knowing,  and  yet  dull.  It  was, 
probably,  the  holiday  expression  of  the  vast,  prosper 
ous  commercial  class,  with  unlimited  money,  and  no 
ideals  that  money  could  not  realize ;  fashion  and  com 
fort  were  all  that  they  desired  to  compass,  and  the 
culture  that  furnishes  showily,  that  decorates  and  that 
tells ;  the  culture,  say,  of  plays  and  operas,  rather  than 
books. 

Perhaps  the  observers  did  the  promenaders  in 
justice;  they  might  not  have  been  as  common-minded 
as  they  looked.  "  But,"  March  said,  "  I  understand 
now  why  the  poor  people  don't  come  up  here  and  live 
in  this  clean,  handsome,  respectable  quarter  of  the 
town;  they  would  be  bored  to  death.  On  the  whole, 
I  think  I  should  prefer  Mott  Street  myself." 

In  other  walks  the  Marches  tried  to  find  some  of 
the  streets  they  had  wandered  through  the  first  day 

350 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  their  wedding  journey  in  New  York,  so  long  ago. 
They  could  not  make  sure  of  them;  but  once  they 
ran  down  to  the  Battery,  and  easily  made  sure  of  that, 
though  not  in  its  old  aspect.  They  recalled  the  hot 
morning,  when  they  sauntered  over  the  trodden  weed 
that  covered  the  sickly  grass-plots  there,  and  sentimen 
talized  the  sweltering  paupers  who  had  crept  out  of  the 
squalid  tenements  about  for  a  breath  of  air  after  a 
sleepless  night.  Now  the  paupers  were  gone,  and  where 
the  old  mansions  that  had  fallen  to  their  use  once  stood, 
there  towered  aloft  and  abroad  those  heights  and 
masses  of  many-storied  brick-work  for  which  archi 
tecture  has  yet  no  proper  form  and  aesthetics  no  name. 
The  trees  and  shrubs,  all  in  their  young  spring  green, 
blew  briskly  over  the  guarded  turf  in  the  south  wind 
that  came  up  over  the  water;  and  in  the  well-paved 
alleys  the  ghosts  of  eighteenth-century  fashion  might 
have  met  each  other  in  their  old  haunts,  and  exchanged 
stately  congratulations  upon  its  vastly  bettered  condi 
tion,  and  perhaps  puzzled  a  little  over  the  colossal  lady 
on  Bedloe's  Island,  with  her  lifted  torch,  and  still  more 
over  the  curving  tracks  and  chalet-stations  of  the  Ele 
vated  road.  It  is  an  outlook  of  unrivalled  beauty 
across  the  bay,  that  smokes  and  flashes  with  the  in 
numerable  stacks  and  sails  of  commerce,  to  the  hills 
beyond,  where  the  moving  forest  of  masts  halts  at  the 
shore,  and  roots  itself  in  the  groves  of  the  many- 
villaged  uplands.  The  Marches  paid  the  charming 
prospects  a  willing  duty,  and  rejoiced  in  it  as  gen 
erously  as  if  it  had  been  their  own.  Perhaps  it  was, 
they  decided.  He  said  people  owned  more  things  in 
common  than  they  were  apt  to  think;  and  they  drew 
the  consolations  of  proprietorship  from  the  excellent 
management  of  Castle  Garden,  which  they  penetrated 
for  a  moment's  glimpse  of  the  huge  rotunda,  where  the 

351 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

immigrants  first  set  foot  on  our  continent.  It  warmed 
their  hearts,  so  easily  moved  to  any  cheap  sympathy, 
to  see  the  friendly  care  the  nation  took  of  these  humble 
guests;  they  found  it  even  pathetic  to  hear  the  proper 
authority  calling  out  the  names  of  such  as  had  kin  or 
acquaintance  waiting  there  to  meet  them.  No  one  ap 
peared  troubled  or  anxious;  the  officials  had  a  con 
scientious  civility;  the  government  seemed  to  manage 
their  welcome  as  well  as  a  private  company  or  cor 
poration  could  have  done.  In  fact,  it  was  after  the 
simple  strangers  had  left  the  government  care  that 
March  feared  their  woes  might  begin ;  and  he  would 
have  liked  the  government  to  follow  each  of  them  to 
his  home,  wherever  he  meant  to  fix  it  within  our  bor 
ders.  He  made  note  of  the  looks  of  the  licensed  run 
ners  and  touters  waiting  for  the  immigrants  outside  the 
government  premises;  he  intended  to  work  them  up 
into  a  dramatic  effect  in  some  sketch,  but  they  re 
mained  mere  material  in  his  memorandum  -  book,  to 
gether  with  some  quaint  old  houses  on  the  Sixth 
Avenue  road,  which  he  had  noticed  on  the  way  down. 
On  the  way  up,  these  were  superseded  in  his  regard  by 
some  hip-roof  structures  on  the  Ninth  Avenue,  which 
he  thought  more-  Dutch-looking.  The  perspectives  of 
the  cross-streets  toward  the  river  were  very  lively,  with 
their  turmoil  of  trucks  and  cars  and  carts  and  hacks 
and  foot-passengers,  ending  in  the  chimneys  and  masts 
of  shipping,  and  final  gleams  of  dancing  water.  At  a 
very  noisy  corner,  clangorous  with  some  sort  of  iron- 
working,  he  made  his  wife  enjoy  with  him  the  quiet 
sarcasm  of  an  inn  that  called  itself  the  Home  -  like 
Hotel,  and  he  speculated  at  fantastic  length  on  the 
gentle  associations  of  one  who  should  have  passed  his 
youth  under  its  roof. 


Ill 


FIRST  and  last,  the  Marches  did  a  good  deal  of 
travel  on  the  Elevated  roads,  which,  he  said,  gave 
you  such  glimpses  of  material  aspects  in  the  city  as 
some  violent  invasion  of  others'  lives  might  afford  in 
human  nature.  Once,  when  the  impulse  of  adventure 
was  very  strong  in  them,  they  went  quite  the  length 
of  the  West  Side  lines,  and  saw  the  city  pushing  its 
way  by  irregular  advances  into  the  country.  Some 
spaces,  probably  held  by  the  owners  for  that  rise  in 
value  which  the  industry  of  others  providentially  gives 
to  the  land  of  the  wise  and  good,  it  left  vacant  com 
paratively  far  down  the  road,  and  built  up  others  at 
remoter  points.  It  was  a  world  of  lofty  apartment- 
houses  beyond  the  Park,  springing  up  in  isolated  blocks, 
with  stretches  of  invaded  rusticity  between,  and  here 
and  there  an  old  country-seat  standing  dusty  in  its 
budding  vines  with  the  ground  before  it  in  rocky  up 
heaval  for  city  foundations.  But  wherever  it  went  or 
wherever  it  paused,  New  York  gave  its  peculiar  stamp ; 
and  the  adventurers  were  amused  to  find  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-fifth  Street  inchoately  like  Twenty-third 
Street  and  Fourteenth  Street  in  its  shops  and  shoppers. 
The  butchers'  shops  and  milliners'  shops  on  the  ave 
nue  might  as  well  have  been  at  Tenth  as  at  One  Hun 
dredth  Street. 

The  adventurers  were  not  often  so  adventurous. 
They  recognized  that  in  their  willingness  to  let  their 

353 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

fancy  range  for  them,  and  to  let  speculation  do  the 
work  of  inquiry,  they  were  no  longer  young.  Their 
point  of  view  was  singularly  unchanged,  and  their 
impressions  of  New  York  remained  the  same  that  they 
had  been  fifteen  years  before:  huge,  noisy,  ugly,  kind 
ly,  it  seemed  to  them  now  as  it  seemed  then.  The 
main  difference  was  that  they  saw  it  more  now  as  a 
life,  and  then  they  only  regarded  it  as  a  spectacle ;  and 
March  could  not  release  himself  from  a  sense  of  com 
plicity  with  it,  no  matter  what  whimsical,  or  alien,  or 
critical  attitude  he  took.  A  sense  of  the  striving  and 
the  suffering  deeply  possessed  him;  and  this  grew  the 
more  intense  as  he  gained  some  knowledge  of  the 
forces  at  work — forces  of  pity,  of  destruction,  of  per 
dition,  of  salvation.  He  wandered  about  on  Sunday 
not  only  through  the  streets,  but  into  this  tabernacle 
and  that,  as  the  spirit  moved  him,  and  listened  to  those 
who  dealt  with  Christianity  as  a  system  of  economics 
as  well  as  a  religion.  He  could  not  get  his  wife  to 
go  with  him;  she  listened  to  his  report  of  what  he 
heard,  and  trembled;  it  all  seemed  fantastic  and  men 
acing.  She  lamented  the  literary  peace,  the  intellect 
ual  refinement  of  the  life  they  had  left  behind  them; 
and  he  owned  it  was  very  pretty,  but  he  said  it  was 
not  life — it  was  death-in-life.  She  liked  to  hear  him 
talk  in  that  strain  of  virtuous  self-denunciation,  but 
she  asked  him,  "  Which,  of  your  prophets  are  you  going 
to  follow  ?"  and  he  answered :  "  All — all !  And  a  fresh 
one  every  Sunday."  And  so  they  got  their  laugh  out 
of  it  at  last,  but  with  some  sadness  at  heart,  and  with 
a  dim  consciousness  that  they  had  got  their  laugh  out 
of  too  many  things  in  life. 

What  really  occupied  and  compassed  his  activities, 
in  spite  of  his  strenuous  reveries  of  work  beyond  it, 
was  his  editorship.  On  its  social  side  it  had  not  ful- 

354 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

filled  all  the  expectations  which  Fulkerson's  radiant 
sketch  of  its  duties  and  relations  had  caused  him  to 
form  of  it.  Most  of  the  contributions  came  from  a 
distance ;  even  the  articles  written  in  ]^ew  York  reach 
ed  him  through  the  post,  and  so  far  from  having  his 
valuable  time,  as  they  called  it,  consumed  in  inter 
views  with  his  collaborators,  he  rarely  saw  any  of  them. 
The  boy  on  the  stairs,  who  was  to  fence  him  from  im 
portunate  visitors,  led  a  life  of  luxurious  disoccupation, 
and  whistled  almost  uninterruptedly.  When  any  one 
came,  March  found  himself  embarrassed  and  a  little 
anxious.  The  visitors  were  usually  young  men,  ter 
ribly  respectful,  but  cherishing,  as  he  imagined,  ideals 
and  opinions  chasmally  different  from  his;  and  he  felt 
in  their  presence  something  like  an  anachronism,  some 
thing  like  a  fraud.  He  tried  to  freshen  up  his  sym 
pathies  on  them,  to  get  at  what  they  were  really  think 
ing  and  feeling,  and  it  was  some  time  before  he  could 
understand  that  they  were  not  really  thinking  and  feel 
ing  anything  of  their  own  concerning  their  art,  but 
were  necessarily,  in  their  quality  of  young,  inexperi 
enced  men,  mere  acceptants  of  older  men's  thoughts 
and  feelings,  whether  they  were  tremendously  con 
servative,  as  some  were,  or  tremendously  progressive, 
as  others  were.  Certain  of  them  called  themselves 
realists,  certain  romanticists ;  but  none  of  them  seemed 
to  know  what  realism  was,  or  what  romanticism;  they 
apparently  supposed  the  difference  a  difference  of  ma 
terial.  March  had  imagined  himself  taking  home  to 
lunch  or  dinner  the  aspirants  for  editorial  favor  whom 
he  liked,  whether  he  liked  their  work  or  not;  but  this 
was  not  an  easy  matter.  Those  who  were  at  all  inter 
esting  seemed  to  have  engagements  and  preoccupations ; 
after  two  or  three  experiments  with  the  bashfuller  sort 

— those  who  had  come  up  to  the  metropolis  with  manu- 
24  355 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

scripts  in  their  hands,  in  the  good  old  literary  tradi 
tion — he  wondered  whether  he  was  otherwise  like  them 
when  he  was  young  like  them.  lie  could  not  flatter 
himself  that  he  was  not ;  and  yet  he  had  a  hope  that  the 
world  had  grown  worse  since  his  time,  which  his  wife 
encouraged. 

Mrs.  March  was  not  eager  to  pursue  the  hospitali 
ties  which  she  had  at  first  imagined  essential  to  the 
literary  prosperity  of  Every  Other  Week;  her  family 
sufficed  her;  she  would  willingly  have  seen  no  one 
out  of  it  but  the  strangers  at  the  weekly  table-d'hote 
dinner,  or  the  audiences  at  the  theatres.  March's  de 
votion  to  his  work  made  him  reluctant  to  delegate  it 
to  any  one ;  and  as  the  summer  advanced,  and  the  ques 
tion  of  where  to  go  grew  more  vexed,  he  showed  a  man's 
base  willingness  to  shirk  it  for  himself  by  not  going 
anywhere.  He  asked  his  wife  why  she  did  not  go 
somewhere  with  the  children,  and  he  joined  her  in  a 
search  for  non-malarial  regions  on  the  map  when  she 
consented  to  entertain  this  notion.  But  when  it  came 
to  the  point  she  would  not  go ;  he  offered  to  go  with 
her  then,  and  then  she  would  not  let  him.  She  said 
she  knew  he  would  be  anxious  about  his  work;  ho 
protested  that  he  could  take  it  with  him  to  any  dis 
tance  within  a  few  hours,  but  she  would  not  be  per 
suaded.  She  would  rather  he  stayed ;  the  effect  would 
be  better  with  Mr.  Fulkerson ;  they  could  make  ex 
cursions,  and  they  could  all  get  off  a  week  or  two  to 
the  seashore  near  Boston — the  only  real  seashore — in 
August.  The  excursions  were  practically  confined  to 
a  single  day  at  Coney  Island;  and  once  they  got  as 
far  as  Boston  on  the  way  to  the  seashore  near  Boston ; 
that  is,  Mrs.  March  and  the  children  wont;  an  editorial 
exigency  kept  March  at  the  last  moment.  The  Boston 
streets  seemed  very  queer  arid  clean  and  empty  to  the 

350 


A     HA/AUD    OF    NEW    F  O  li  'I  L  :,  I. 


,  and  the  building-  JittJe;  in  the  horse  -caw 
the  Jio-ton  faces  seemed  to  arraign  their  mother  with 
a  down-drawn  severity  that,  made  her  feel  very  guilty. 
She  knew  that  thi-  wa-;  meielj  rhr;  Puritan  mask,  the 
cast  of  a  dead  civilization,  whieh  people  of  very  amiable 
and  tolerant,  mind.s  were  doomed  to  wear,  and 
.-ii'li'-d  to  think  that  less  than  a  year  of  the  hetero 
geneous  gayety  of  New  York  should  have  made  her 
afraid  of  it.  The  sky  seemed  cold  and  gray;  the  east 
d,  whi'-h  she  had  always  thought  so  df-lieiou-:  in 
-umiM-r.  <  -nt  hr-r  to  the  heart.  She  took  her  children 
up  to  the  South  Knd,  and  in  the  pretty  square  where 
they  used  to  live  they  stood  before  their  ali<-n;>t<-d 
home,  and  looked  up  at  its  close  -  shuttered  windows. 
The  tenants  must  have  been  away,  but  Mr-.  Mareh 
had  not  the  courage  to  ring  and  make  sure,  though 
she  had  alway.-:  promised  herself  that  she  would  go 
all  over  the  house  when  she  came  back,  and  see  how 
they  had  used  it  :  -he  eoiild  pretend  a  desire  for  some 
thing  she  wished  to  take  away.  She  knew  she  could 
not  Uar  it  now;  and  the  children  did  not  seem  eager. 
She  did  not  push  on  to  the  seaside;  it  would  be  for 
lorn  there  without  their  father;  she  was  glad  to  go 
bfK-k  to  him  in  the  immense,  friendly  hornelessness  of 
New  York,  and  hold  him  answerable  for  the  change, 
in  her  heart  or  her  mind,  which  made  its  shapelflll 
tumult  a  refuge  and  a  consolation. 

She  found  that  he  had  been  giving  the  cook  a  holi 
day,  and  dining  about  hither  and  thither  with  Fulker- 
son.  Once  he  had  dined  with  him  at  the  widow's  (as 
they  always  called  Mr-.  L'  :  then  had  spent 

the  evening  there,  and  smoked  with  Fulkerson  and 
C'oJonel  Woodburn  on  the  gallery  overlooking  the  baek 
yard.  They  were  all  spending  the  summer  in  New 
VorL  The  widow  had  got  so  good  an  offer  for  her 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

house  at  St.  Barnaby  for  the  summer  that  she  could 
not  refuse  it;  and  the  Woodburns  found  New  York 
a  watering-place  of  exemplary  coolness  after  the  burn 
ing  Augusts  and  Septembers  of  Charlottesburg. 

"  You  can  stand  it  well  enough  in  our  climate,  sir," 
the  colonel  explained,  "  till  you  come  to  the  September 
heat,  that  sometimes  runs  well  into  October ;  and  then 
you  begin  to  lose  your  temper,  sir.  It's  never  quite 
so  hot  as  it  is  in  New  York  at  times,  but  it's  hot  longer, 
sir."  He  alleged,  as  if  something  of  the  sort  were 
necessary,  the  example  of  a  famous  Southwestern  edit 
or  who  spent  all  his  summers  in  a  New  York  hotel  as 
the  most  luxurious  retreat  on  the  continent,  consulting 
the  weather  forecasts,  and  running  off  on  torrid  days 
to  the  mountains  or  the  sea,  and  then  hurrying  back 
at  the  promise  of  cooler  weather.  The  colonel  had  not 
found  it  necessary  to  do  this  yet;  and  he  had  been 
reluctant  to  leave  town,  where  he  was  working  up  a 
branch  of  the  inquiry  which  had  so  long  occupied  him, 
in  the  libraries,  and  studying  the  great  problem  of 
labor  and  poverty  as  it  continually  presented  itself  to 
him  in  the  streets.  He  said  that  he  talked  with  all 
sorts  of  people,  whom  he  found  monstrously  civil,  if 
you  took  them  in  the  right  way;  and  he  went  every 
where  in  the  city  without  fear  and  apparently  without 
danger.  March  could  not  find  out  that  he  had  ridden 
his  hobby  into  the  homes  of  want  which  he  visited,  or 
had  proposed  their  enslavement  to  the  inmates  as  a 
short  and  simple  solution  of  the  great  question  of  their 
lives;  he  appeared  to  have  contented  himself  with  the 
collection  of  facts  for  the  persuasion  of  the  cultivated 
classes.  It  seemed  to  March  a  confirmation  of  this  im 
pression  that  the  colonel  should  address  his  deductions 
from  these  facts  so  unsparingly  to  him;  he  listened 
with  a  respectful  patience,  for  which  Fulkerson  after- 

358 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ward  personally  thanked  him.  Fulkerson  said  it  was 
not  often  the  colonel  found  such  a  good  listener;  gen 
erally  nobody  listened  but  Mrs.  Leighton,  who  thought 
his  ideas  were  shocking,  but  honored  him  for  hold 
ing  them  so  conscientiously.  Fulkerson  was  glad  that 
March,  as  the  literary  department,  had  treated  the 
old  gentleman  so  well,  because  there  was  an  open  feud 
between  him  and  the  art  department.  Beaton  was  out 
rageously  rude,  Fulkerson  must  say ;  though  as  for  that, 
the  old  colonel  seemed  quite  able  to  take  care  of  himself, 
and  gave  Beaton  an  unqualified  contempt  in  return  for 
his  unmannerliness.  The  worst  of  it  was,  it  distressed 
the  old  lady  so;  she  admired  Beaton  as  much  as  she 
respected  the  colonel,  and  she  admired  Beaton,  Fulker 
son  thought,  rather  more  than  Miss  Leighton  did;  he 
asked  March  if  he  had  noticed  them  together.  March 
had  noticed  them,  but  without  any  very  definite  im 
pression  except  that  Beaton  seemed  to  give  the  whole 
evening  to  the  girl.  Afterward  he  recollected  that  he 
had  fancied  her  rather  harassed  by  his  devotion,  and  it 
was  this  point  that  he  wished  to  present  for  his  wife's 
opinion. 

"  Girls  often  put  on  that  air,"  she  said.  "  It's  one 
of  their  ways  of  teasing.  But  then,  if  the  man  was 
really  very  much  in  love,  and  she  was  only  enough  in 
love  to  be  uncertain  of  herself,  she  might  very  well 
seem  troubled.  It  would  be  a  very  serious  question. 
Girls  often  don't  know  what  to  do  in  such  a  case." 

"Yes,"  said  March,  "I've  often  been  glad  that  I 
was  not  a  girl,  on  that  account.  But  I  guess  that  on 
general  principles  Beaton  is  not  more  in  love  than  she 
is.  I  couldn't  imagine  that  young  man  being  more  in 
love  with  anybody,  unless  it  was  himself.  He  might 
be  more  in  love  with  himself  than  any  one  else  was." 

"  Well,  he  doesn't  interest  me  a  great  deal,  and  I 

359 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

can't  say  Miss  Leighton  does,  either.  I  think  she  can 
take  care  of  herself.  She  has  herself  very  well  in 
hand." 

"  Why  so  censorious  ?"  pleaded  March.  "  I  don't 
defend  her  for  having  herself  in  hand;  but  is  it  a 
fault?" 

Mrs.  March  did  not  say.  She  asked,  "  And  how  does 
Mr.  Fulkerson's  affair  get  on  ?" 

"His  affair?  You  really  think  it  is  one?  Well, 
I've  fancied  so  myself,  and  I've  had  an  idea  of  some 
time  asking  him;  Fulkerson  strikes  one  as  truly  do 
mesticable,  conjugable  at  heart ;  but  I've  waited  for 
him  to  speak." 

"  I  should  think  so." 

"  Yes.  He's  never  opened  on  the  subject  yet.  Do 
you  know,  I  think  Fulkerson  has  his  moments  of 
delicacy." 

"  Moments !    He's  all  delicacy  in  regard  to  women." 

"  Well,  perhaps  so.  There  is  nothing  in  them  to 
rouse  his  advertising  instincts." 


IV 


THE  Dry f oos  family  stayed  in  town  till  August. 
Then  the  father  went  West  again  to  look  after  his 
interests;  and  Mrs.  Mandel  took  the  two  girls  to  one 
of  the  great  hotels  in  Saratoga.  Fulkerson  said  that 
he  had  never  seen  anything  like  Saratoga  for  fashion, 
and  Mrs.  Mandel  remembered  that  in  her  own  young 
ladyhood  this  was  so  for  at  least  some  weeks  of  the 
year.  She  had  been  too  far  withdrawn  from  fashion 
since  her  marriage  to  know  whether  it  was  still  so  or 
not.  In  this,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  the  Dryfoos 
family  helplessly  relied  upon  Fulkerson,  in  spite  of 
Dryfoos's  angry  determination  that  he  should  not  run 
the  family,  and  in  spite  of  Christine's  doubt  of  his 
omniscience;  if  he  did  not  know  everything,  she  was 
aware  that  he  knew  more  than  herself.  She  thought 
that  they  had  a  right  to  have  him  go  with  them  to 
Saratoga,  or  at  least  go  up  and  engage  their  rooms 
beforehand;  but  Fulkerson  did  not  offer  to  do  either, 
and  she  did  not  quite  see  her  way  to  commanding  his 
services.  The  young  ladies  took  what  Mela  called 
splendid  dresses  with  them;  they  sat  in  the  park  of 
tall,  slim  trees  which  the  hotel's  quadrangle  enclosed, 
and  listened  to  the  music  in  the  morning,  or  on  the 
long  piazza  in  the  afternoon  and  looked  at  the  driving 
in  the  street,  or  in  the  vast  parlors  by  night,  where  all 
the  other  ladies  were,  and  they  felt  that  they  were  of 
the  best  there.  But  they  knew  nobody,  and  Mrs.  Man- 

361 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

del  was  so  particular  that  Mela  was  prevented  from 
continuing  the  acquaintance  even  of  the  few  young 
men  who  danced  with  her  at  the  Saturday-night  hops. 
They  drove  about,  but  they  went  to  places  without 
knowing  why,  except  that  the  carriage  man  took  them, 
and  they  had  all  the  privileges  of  a  proud  exclusivism 
without  desiring  them.  Once  a  motherly  matron  seem 
ed  to  perceive  their  isolation,  and  made  overtures  to 
them,  but  then  desisted,  as  if  repelled  by  Christine's 
suspicion,  or  by  Mela's  too  instant  and  hilarious  good- 
fellowship,  which  expressed  itself  in  hoarse  laughter 
and  in  a  flow  of  talk  full  of  topical  and  syntactical 
freedom.  From  time  to  time  she  offered  to  bet  Chris 
tine  that  if  Mr.  Fulkerson  was  only  there  they  would 
have  a  good  time;  she  wondered  what  they  were  all 
doing  in  New  York,  where  she  wished  herself;  she 
rallied  her  sister  about  Beaton,  and  asked  her  why  she 
did  not  write  and  tell  him  to  come  up  there. 

Mela  knew  that  Christine  had  expected  Beaton  to 
follow  them.  Some  banter  had  passed  between  them 
to  this  effect;  he  said  he  should  take  them  in  on  his 
way  home  to  Syracuse.  Christine  would  not  have  hesi 
tated  to  write  to  him  and  remind  him  of  his  promise; 
but  she  had  learned  to  distrust  her  literature  with  Bea 
ton  since  he  had  laughed  at  the  spelling  in  a  scrap  of 
writing  which  dropped  out  of  her  music-book  one  night. 
She  believed  that  he  would  not  have  laughed  if  he  had 
known  it  was  hers;  but  she  felt  that  she  could  hide 
better  the  deficiencies  which  were  not  committed  to 
paper;  she  could  manage  with  him  in  talking;  she  was 
too  ignorant  of  her  ignorance  to  recognize  the  mis 
takes  she  made  then.  Through  Her  own  passion  she 
perceived  that  she  had  some  kind  of  fascination  for 
him;  she  was  graceful,  and  she  thought  it  must  be 
that;  she  did  not  understand  that  there  was  a  kind  of 

362 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

beauty  in  her  small,  irregular  features  that  piqued  and 
haunted  his  artistic  sense,  and  a  look  in  her  black  eyes 
beyond  her  intelligence  and  intention.  Once  he  sketch 
ed  her  as  they  sat  together,  and  flattered  the  portrait 
without  getting  what  he  wanted  in  it;  he  said  he  must 
try  her  some  time  in  color;  and  he  said  things  which, 
when  she  made  Mela  repeat  them,  could  only  mean 
that  he  admired  her  more  than  anybody  else.  He  came 
fitfully,  but  he  came  often,  and  she  rested  content  in 
a  girl's  indefiniteness  concerning  the  affair ;  if  her 
thought  went  beyond  love-making  to  marriage,  she  be 
lieved  that  she  could  have  him  if  she  wanted  him.  Her 
father's  money  counted  in  this ;  she  divined  that  Beaton 
was  poor ;  but  that  made  no  difference ;  she  would  have 
enough  for  both ;  the  money  would  have  counted  as  an 
irresistible  attraction  if  there  had  been  no-  other. 

The  affair  had  gone  on  in  spite  of  the  sidelong  looks 
of  restless  dislike  with  which  Dryfoos  regarded  it ;  but 
now  when  Beaton  did  not  come  to  Saratoga  it  neces 
sarily  dropped,  and  Christine's  content  with  it.  She 
bore  the  trial  as  long  as  she  could ;  she  used  pride  and 
resentment  against  it;  but  at  last  she  could  not  bear 
it,  and  with  Mela's  help  she  wrote  a  letter,  bantering 
Beaton  on  his  stay  in  New  York,  and  playfully  boast 
ing  of  Saratoga.  It  seemed  to  them  both  that  it  was 
a  very  bright  letter,  and  would  be  sure  to  bring  him; 
they  would  have  had  no  scruple  about  sending  it  but 
for  the  doubt  they  had  whether  they  had  got  some  of 
the  words  right.  Mela  offered  to  bet  Christine  any 
thing  she  dared  that  they  were  right,  and  she  said, 
Send  it  anyway;  it  was  no  difference  if  they  were 
wrong.  But  Christine  could  not  endure  to  think  of 
that  laugh  of  Beaton's,  and  there  remained  only  Mrs. 
Mandel  as  authority  on  the  spelling.  Christine  dread 
ed  her  authority  on  other  points,  but  Mela  said  she 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

knew  she  would  not  interfere,  and  she  undertook  to 
get  round  her.  Mrs.  Mandel  pronounced  the  spell 
ing  bad,  and  the  taste  worse ;  she  forbade  them  to  send 
the  letter;  and  Mela  failed  to  get  round  her,  though 
she  threatened,  if  Mrs.  Mandel  would  not  tell  her  how 
to  spell  the  wrong  words,  that  she  would  send  the  let 
ter  as  it  was ;  then  Mrs.  Mandel  said  that  if  Mr.  Beaton 
appeared  in  Saratoga  she  would  instantly  take  them 
both  home.  When  Mela  reported  this  result,  Christine 
accused  her  of  having  mismanaged  the  whole  business ; 
she  quarrelled  with  her,  and  they  called  each  other 
names.  Christine  declared  that  she  would  not  stay  in 
Saratoga,  and  that  if  Mrs.  Mandel  did  not  go  back  to 
JSTew  York  with  her  she  should  go  alone.  They  re 
turned  the  first  week  in  September;  but  by  that  time 
Beaton  had  gone  to  see  his  people  in  Syracuse. 

Conrad  Dryfoos  remained  at  home  with  his  mother 
after  his  father  went  West.  He  had  already  taken  such 
a  vacation  as  he  had  been  willing  to  allow  himself,  and 
had  spent  it  on  a  charity  farm  near  the  city,  where  the 
fathers  with  whom  he  worked  among  the  poor  on  the 
East  Side  in  the  winter  had  sent  some  of  their  wards 
for  the  summer.  It  was  not  possible  to  keep  his  recrea 
tion  a  secret  at  the  office,  and  Fulkerson  found  a  pleas 
ure  in  figuring  the  jolly  time  Brother  Conrad  must 
have  teaching  farm  work  among  those  paupers  and 
potential  reprobates.  He  invented  details  of  his  ex 
perience  among  them,  and  March  could  not  always  help 
joining  in  the  laugh  at  Conrad's  humorless  helplessness 
under  Fulkerson's  burlesque  denunciation  of  a  summer 
outing  spent  in  such  dissipation. 

They  had  time  for  a  great  deal  of  joking  at  the 
office  during  the  season  of  leisure  which  penetrates 
in  August  to  the  very  heart  of  business,  and  they  all 
got  on  terms  of  greater  intimacy  if  not  greater  friendli- 

364 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ness  than  before.  Fulkerson  had  not  had  so  long  to 
do  with  the  advertising  side  of  human  nature  without 
developing  a  vein  of  cynicism,  of  no  great  depth,  per 
haps,  but  broad,  and  underlying  his  whole  point  of 
view ;  he  made  light  of  Beaton's  solemnity,  as  he  made 
light  of  Conrad's  humanity.  The  art  editor,  with 
abundant  sarcasm,  had  no  more  humor  than  the  pub 
lisher,  and  was  an  easy  prey  in  the  manager's  hands; 
but  when  he  had  been  led  on  by  Fulkerson's  flatteries 
to  make  some  betrayal  of  egotism,  he  brooded  over  it 
till  he  had  thought  how  to  revenge  himself  in  elaborate 
insult.  For  Beaton's  talent  F'ulkerson  never  lost  his 
admiration ;  but  his  joke  was  to  encourage  him  to  give 
himself  airs  of  being  the  sole  source  of  the  magazine's 
prosperity.  No  bait  of  this  sort  was  too  obvious  for 
Beaton  to  swallow;  he  could  be  caught  with  it  as  often 
as  Fulkerson  chose;  though  he  was  ordinarily  sus 
picious  as  to  the  motives  of  people  in  saying  things. 
With  March  he  got  on  no  better  than  at  first.  He 
seemed  to  be  lying  in  wait  for  some  encroachment  of 
the  literary  department  on  the  art  department,  and  he 
met  it  now  and  then  with  anticipative  reprisal.  After 
these  rebuffs,  the  editor  delivered  him  over  to  the  man 
ager,  who  could  turn  Beaton's  contrary-mindedness  to 
account  by  asking  the  reverse  of  what  he  really  wanted 
done.  This  was  what  Fulkerson  said ;  the  fact  was  that 
he  did  get  on  with  Beaton ;  and  March  contented  him 
self  with  musing  upon  the  contradictions  of  a  character 
at  once  so  vain  and  so  offensive,  so  fickle  and  so  sullen, 
so  conscious  and  so  simple. 

After  the  first  jarring  contact  with  Dryfoos,  the 
editor  ceased  to  feel  the  disagreeable  fact  of  the  old 
man's  mastery  of  the  financial  situation.  None  of  the 
chances  which  might  have  made  it  painful  occurred; 
the  control  of  the  whole  affair  remained  in  Fulkerson's 

365 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

hands;  before  he  went  West  again,  Dryfoos  had  ceased 
to  conie  about  the  office,  as  if,  having  once  worn  off  the 
novelty  of  the  sense  of  owning  a  literary  periodical,  he 
was  no  longer  interested  in  it. 

Yet  it  was  a  relief,  somehow,  when  he  left  town, 
which  he  did  not  do  without  coming  to  take  a  formal 
leave  of  the  editor  at  his  office.  He  seemed  willing 
to  leave  March  with  a  better  impression  than  he  had 
hitherto  troubled  himself  to  make;  he  even  said  some 
civil  things  about  the  magazine,  as  if  its  success  pleased 
him;  and  he  spoke  openly  to  March  of  his  hope  that 
his  son  would  finally  become  interested  in  it  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  hopes  and  purposes  which  divided 
them.  It  seemed  to  March  that  in  the  old  man's 
warped  and  toughened  heart  he  perceived  a  disap 
pointed  love  for  his  son  greater  than  for  his  other 
children;  but  this  might  have  been  fancy.  Lindau 
came  in  with  some  copy  while  Dryfoos  was  there,  and 
March  introduced  them.  When  Lindau  went  out, 
March  explained  to  Dryfoos  that  he  had  lost  his  hand 
in  the  war;  and  he  told  him  something  of  Lindau's 
career  as  he  had  known  it.  Dryfoos  appeared  greatly 
pleased  that  Every  Other  Week  was  giving  Lindau 
work.  He  said  that  he  had  helped  to  enlist  a  good 
many  fellows  for  the  war,  and  had  paid  money  to  fill 
up  the  Moffitt  County  quota  under  the  later  calls  for 
troops.  He  had  never  been  an  Abolitionist,  but  he  had 
joined  the  Anti  -  Nebraska  party  in  '55,  and  he  had 
voted  for  Fremont  and  for  every  Republican  President 
since  then. 

At  his  own  house  March  saw  more  of  Lindau  than 
of  any  other  contributor,  but  the  old  man  seemed  to 
think  that  he  must  transact  all  his  business  with  March 
at  his  place  of  business.  The  transaction  had  some 
peculiarities  which  perhaps  made  this  necessary,  Lin- 

306 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

dau  always  expected  to  receive  his  money  when  he 
brought  his  copy,  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  im 
mediate  right  of  the  laborer  to  his  hire ;  and  he  would 
not  take  it  in  a  check  because  he  did  not  approve  of 
banks,  and  regarded  the  whole  system  of  banking  as 
the  capitalistic  manipulation  of  the  people's  money. 
He  would  receive  his  pay  only  from  March's  hand, 
because  he  wished  to  be  understood  as  working  for 
him,  and  honestly  earning  money  honestly  earned; 
and  sometimes  March  inwardly  winced  a  little  at  let 
ting  the  old  man  share  the  increase  of  capital  won 
by  such  speculation  as  Dryfoos's,  but  he  shook  off  the 
feeling.  As  the  summer  advanced,  and  the  artists  and 
classes  that  employed  Lindau  as  a  model  left  town  one 
after  another,  he  gave  largely  of  his  increasing  leisure 
to  the  people  in  the  office  of  Every  Other  Week.  It 
was  pleasant  for  March  to  see  the  respect  with  which 
Conrad  Dryfoos  always  used  him,  for  the  sake  of  his 
hurt  and  his  gray  beard.  There  was  something  delicate 
and  fine  in  it,  and  there  was  nothing  unkindly  on  Ful- 
kerson's  part  in  the  hostilities  which  usually  passed 
between  himself  and  Lindau.  Fulkerson  bore  himself 
reverently  at  times,  too,  but  it  was  not  in  him  to 
keep  that  up,  especially  when  Lindau  appeared  with 
more  beer  aboard  than,  as  Fulkerson  said,  he  could 
manage  ship  -  shape.  On  these  occasions  Fulkerson 
always  tried  to  start  him  on  the  theme  of  the  unduly 
rich;  he  made  himself  the  champion  of  monopolies, 
and  enjoyed  the  invectives  which  Lindau  heaped  upon 
him  as  a  slave  of  capital;  he  said  that  it  did  him 
good. 

One  day,  with  the  usual  show  of  writhing  under 
Lindau's  scorn,  he  said,  "  Well,  I  understand  that  al 
though  you  despise  me  now,  Lindau— 

"  I  ton't  desbise  you,"  the  old  man  broke  in,  his 

367 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

nostrils  swelling  and  his  eyes  flaming  with  excite 
ment,  "  I  bity  you." 

"  Well,  it  seems  to  come  to  the  same  thing  in  the 
end/'  said  Fulkerson.  "  What  I  understand  is  that 
you  pity  me  now  as  the  slave  of  capital,  but  you 
would  pity  me  a  great  deal  more  if  I  was  the  master 
of  it." 

"  How  you  mean  ?" 

"  If  I  was  rich." 

"  That  would  tebendt,"  said  Lindau,  trying  to  con 
trol  himself.  "  If  you  hat  inherited!  your  money,  you 
might  pe  innocent;  but  if  you  hat  mate  it,  efery  man 
that  resbectedt  himself  would  haf  to  ask  how  you  mate 
it,  and  if  you  hat  mate  moch,  he  would  know — " 

"  Hold  on ;  hold  on,  now,  Lindau !  Ain't  that  rather 
un-American  doctrine?  We're  all  brought  up,  ain't 
we,  to  honor  the  man  that  made  his  money,  and  look 
down — or  try  to  look  down;  sometimes  it's  difficult — 
on  the  fellow  that  his  father  left  it  to  ?" 

The  old  man  rose  and  struck  his  breast.  "  On- 
Amerigan!"  he  roared,  and,  as  he  went  on,  his  ac 
cent  grew  more  and  more  uncertain.  "  What  iss 
Amerigan  ?  Dere  iss  no  Ameriga  any  more !  You 
start  here  free  and  brafe,  and  you  glaim  for  efery 
man  de  right  to  life,  liperty,  and  de  bursuit  of  habbi- 
ness.  And  vhere  haf  you  entedt  ?  !Nb  man  that  vorks 
vith  his  handts  among  you  has  the  liperty  to  bursue 
his  habbiness.  He  iss  the  slafe  of  some  richer  man, 
some  gompany,  some  gorporation,  dat  crindt  him  down 
to  the  least  he  can  lif  on,  and  that  rops  him  of  the 
marchin  of  his  earnings  that  he  might  pe  habby  on. 
Oh,  you  Amerigans,  you  haf  cot  it  down  goldt,  as  you 
say !  You  ton't  puy  f oters ;  you  puy  lechislatures  and 
goncressmen ;  you  puy  gourts ;  you  puy  gombetitors ; 
you  pay  infentors  not  to  infent;  you  atfertise,  and 

308 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

the  gounting  -  room  sees  dat  de  etitorial  -  room  toesn't 
tink." 

"  Yes,  we've  got  a  little  arrangement  of  that  sort 
with  March  here,"  said  Fulkerson. 

"  Oh,  I  am  sawry,"  said  the  old  man,  contritely, 
"  I  meant  noting  bersonal.  I  ton't  tink  we  are  all 
cuilty  or  gorrubt,  and  efen  among  the  rich  there  are 
goodt  men.  But  gabidal "  —his  passion  rose  again — 
"  vhere  you  find  gabidal,  millions  of  money  that  a  man 
hass  cot  togeder  in  fife,  ten,  tventy  years,  you  findt 
the  smell  of  tears  and  ploodt!  Dat  iss  what  I  say. 
And  you  cot  to  loog  oudt  for  yourself  when  you  meet 
a  rich  man  whether  you  meet  an  honest  man." 

"  Well,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  I  wish  I  was  a  subject 
of  suspicion  with  you,  Linclau.  By-the-way,"  he  added, 
"  I  understand  that  you  think  capital  was  at  the  bot 
tom  of  the  veto  of  that  pension  of  yours." 

"  What  bension  ?  What  f  eto  ?"  The  old  man  flamed 
up  again.  "  ~No  bension  of  mine  was  efer  fetoedt.  I 
renounce  my  bension,  begause  I  would  sgorn  to  dako 
money  from  a  gofernment  that  I  ton't  peliefe  in  any 
more.  Where  you  hear  that  story  ?" 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  Fulkerson,  rather  em 
barrassed.  "  It's  common  talk." 

"  It's  a  gommon  lie,  then !  When  the  time  gome 
dat  dis  iss  a  free  gountry  again,  then  I  dake  a  bension 
again  for  my  woundts;  but  I  would  sdarfe  before  I 
dake  a  bension  now  from  a  rebublic  dat  iss  bought  oap 
by  monobolies,  and  ron  by  drusts  and  gompines,  and 
railroadts  adnt  oil  gompanies." 

"  Look  out,  Lindau,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  You  bite 
yourself  in  it  dat  dog  some  day."  But  when  the  old 
man,  with  a  ferocious  gesture  of  renunciation,  whirled 
out  of  the  place,  he  added :  "  I  guess  I  went  a  little 
too  far  that  time.  I  touched  him  on  a  sore  place;  I 

369 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

didn't  mean  to;  I  heard  some  talk  about  his  pension 
being  vetoed  from  Miss  Leighton."  He  addressed  these 
exculpations  to  March's  grave  face,  and  to  the  pitying 
deprecation  in  the  eyes  of  Conrad  Dryfoos,  whom  Lin- 
dau's  roaring  wrath  had  summoned  to  the  door.  "  But 
I'll  make  it  all  right  with  him  the  next  time  he  comes. 
I  didn't  know  he  was  loaded,  or  I  wouldn't  have  mon 
keyed  with  him." 

"  Lindau  does  himself  injustice  when  he  gets  to  talk 
ing  in  that  way,7'  said  March.  "  I  hate  to  hear  him. 
He's  as  good  an  American  as  any  of  us;  and  it's  only 
because  he  has  too  high  an  ideal  of  us — " 

"  Oh,  go  on !  Rub  it  in — rub  it  in !"  cried  Fulker- 
son,  clutching  his  hair  in  suffering,  which  was  not 
altogether  burlesque.  "  How  did  I  know  he  had  re 
nounced  his  '  bension  '  ?  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  ?" 

"  I  didn't  know  it  myself.  I  only  knew  that  he  had 
none,  and  I  didn't  ask,  for  I  had  a  notion  that  it  might 
be  a  painful  subject." 

Fulkerson  tried  to  turn  it  off  lightly.  "  Well,  he's 
a  noble  old  fellow ;  pity  he  drinks."  March  would  not 
smile,  and  Fulkerson  broke  out :  "  Dog  on  it !  I'll  make 
it  up  to  the  old  fool  the  next  time  he  comes.  I  don't 
like  that  dynamite  talk  of  his ;  but  any  man  that's  given 
his  hand  to  the  country  has  got  mine  in  his  grip  for 
good.  Why,  March!  You  don't  suppose  I  wanted  to 
hurt  his  feelings,  do  you  ?" 

"  Why,  of  course  not,  Fulkerson." 

But  they  could  not  get  away  from  a  certain  rueful 
ness  for  that  time,  and  in  the  evening  Fulkerson  came 
round  to  March's  to  say  that  he  had  got  Lindau's 
address  from  Conrad,  and  had  looked  him  up  at  his 
lodgings. 

"  Well,  there  isn't  so  much  bric-a-brac  there,  quite, 

as  Mrs.   Green  left  you;   but  I've  made  it  all  right 

370 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  Lindau,  as  far  as  I'm  concerned.  I  told  him  I 
didn't  know  when  I  spoke  that  way,  and  I  honored 
him  for  sticking  to  his  '  brinciples ' ;  I  don't  believe 
in  his  {  brincibles  ' ;  and  we  wept  on  each  other's  necks 
— at  least,  he  did.  Dogged  if  he  didn't  kiss  me  before 
I  knew  what  he  was  up  to.  He  said  I  was  his  chener- 
ous  yong  friendt,  and  he  begged  my  barton  if  he  had 
said  anything  to  wound  me.  I  tell  you  it  was  an  af 
fecting  scene,  March;  and  rats  enough  round  in  that 
old  barracks  where  he  lives  to  fit  out  a  first-class  case 
of  delirium  tremens.  What  does  he  stay  there  for? 
He's  not  obliged  to  3" 

Lindau's  reasons,  as  March  repeated  them,  affected 
Fulkerson  as  deliciously  comical ;  but  after  that  he 
confined  his  pleasantries  at  the  office  to  Beaton  and 
Conrad  Dryfoos,  or,  as  he  said,  he  spent  the  rest  of 
the  summer  in  keeping  Lindau  smoothed  up. 

It  is  doubtful  if  Lindau  altogether  liked  this  as 
well.  Perhaps  he  missed  the  occasions  Fulkerson 
used  to  give  him  of  bursting  out  against  the  million 
aires  ;  and  he  could  not  well  go  on  denouncing  as  the 
slafe  of  gabidal  a  man  who  had  behaved  to  him  as 
Fulkerson  had  done,  though  Fulkerson's  servile  re 
lations  to  capital  had  been  in  nowise  changed  by  his 
nople  gonduct. 

Their  relations  continued  to  wear  this  irksome  char 
acter  of  mutual  forbearance;  and  when  Dryfoos  re 
turned  in  October  and  Fulkerson  revived  the  question 
of  that  dinner  in  celebration  of  the  success  of  Every 
Other  Week,  he  carried  his  complaisance  to  an  extreme 
that  alarmed  March  for  the  consequences. 
25 


"  You  see,"  Fulkerson  explained,  "  I  find  that  the 
old  man  has  got  an  idea  of  his  own  about  that  banquet, 
and  I  guess  there's  some  sense  in  it.  He  wants  to  have 
a  preliminary  little  dinner,  where  we  can  talk  the 
thing  up  first — half  a  dozen  of  us;  and  he  wants  to 
give  us  the  dinner  at  his  house.  Well,  that's  no  harm. 
I  don't  believe  the  old  man  ever  gave  a  dinner,  and 
he'd  like  to  show  off  a  little;  there's  a  good  deal  of 
human  nature  in  the  old  man,  after  all.  He  thought 
of  you,  of  course,  and  Colonel  Woodburn,  and  Beaton, 
and  me  at  the  foot  of  the  table ;  and  Conrad ;  and  I  sug 
gested  Kendricks:  he's  such  a  nice  little  chap;  and  the 
old  man  himself  brought  up  the  idea  of  Lindau.  He 
said  you  told  him  something  about  him,  and  he  asked 
why  couldn't  we  have  him,  too;  and  I  jumped  at  it." 

"  Have  Lindau  to  dinner  ?"  asked  March. 

"  Certainly ;  why  not  ?  Father  Dryfoos  has  a  no 
tion  of  paying  the  old  fellow  a  compliment  for  what 
he  done  for  the  country.  There  won't  be  any  trouble 
about  it.  You  can  sit  alongside  of  him,  and  cut  up 
his  meat  for  him,  and  help  him  to  things — 

"  Yes,  but  it  won't  do,  Fulkerson !  I  don't  believe 
Lindau  ever  had  on  a  dress-coat  in  his  life,  and  I  don't 
believe  his  i  brincibles '  would  let  him  wear  one." 

"  Well,  neither  had  Dryfoos,  for  the  matter  of 
that.  He's  as  high  -  principled  as  old  Pan  -  Electric 
himself,  when  it  comes  to  a  dress-coat,"  said  Fulker- 

372 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

son.  "  We're  all  going  to  go  in  business  dress ;  the 
old  man  stipulated  for  that." 

"  It  isn't  the  dress  -  coat  alone,"  March  resumed. 
"  Lindau  and  Dryfoos  wouldn't  get  on.  You  know 
they're  opposite  poles  in  everything.  You  mustn't  do 
it.  Dryfoos  will  be  sure  to  say  something  to  outrage 
Lindau's  '  brincibles,'  and  there'll  be  an  explosion. 
It's  all  well  enough  for  Dryfoos  to  feel  grateful  to 
Lindau,  and  his  wish  to  honor  him  does  him  credit; 
but  to  have  Lindau  to  dinner  isn't  the  way.  At  the 
best,  the  old  fellow  would  be  very  unhappy  in  such  a 
house ;  he  would  have  a  bad  conscience ;  and  I  should 
be  sorry  to  have  him  feel  that  he'd  been  recreant  to 
his  '  brincibles ' ;  they're  about  all  he's  got,  and  what 
ever  we  think  of  them,  we're  bound  to  respect  his 
fidelity  to  them."  March  warmed  toward  Lindau  in 
taking  this  view  of  him.  "  I  should  feel  ashamed  if 
I  didn't  protest  against  his  being  put  in  a  false  posi 
tion.  After  all,  he's  my  old  friend,  and  I  shouldn't 
like  to  have  him  do  himself  injustice  if  he  is  a  crank." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Fulkerson,  with  some  trouble  in 
his  face.  "  I  appreciate  your  feeling.  But  there  ain't 
any  danger,"  he  added,  buoyantly.  "  Anyhow,  you 
spoke  too  late,  as  the  Irishman  said  to  the  chicken 
when  he  swallowed  him  in  a  fresh  egg.  I've  asked 
Lindau,  and  he's  accepted  with  blayzure;  that's  what 
he  says." 

March  made  no  other  comment  than  a  shrug. 

"  You'll  see,"  Fulkerson  continued,  "  it  '11  go  off  all 
right.  I'll  engage  to  make  it,  and  I  won't  hold  any 
body  else  responsible." 

In  the  course  of  his  married  life  March  had  learned 
not  to  censure  the  irretrievable ;  but  this  was  just  what 
his  wife  had  not  learned ;  and  she  poured  out  so  much 
astonishment  at  what  Fulkerson  had  done,  and  so  much 

373 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

disapproval,  that  March  began  to  palliate  the  situation 
a  little. 

"  After  all,  it  isn't  a  question  of  life  and  death ; 
and,  if  it  were,  I  don't  see  how  it's  to  be  helped  now." 

"  Oh,  it's  not  to  be  helped  now.  But  I  am  surprised 
at  Mr.  Fulkerson." 

"  Well,  Fulkerson  has  his  moments  of  being  merely 
human,  too." 

Mrs.  March  would  not  deign  a  direct  defence  of  her 
favorite.  "  Well,  I'm  glad  there  are  not  to  be  ladies." 

"  I  don't  know.  Dryfoos  thought  of  having  ladies, 
but  it  seems  your  infallible  Fulkerson  overruled  him. 
Their  presence  might  have  kept  Lindau  and  our  host 
in  bounds." 

It  had  become  part  of  the  Marches'  conjugal  joke 
for  him  to  pretend  that  she  could  allow  nothing  wrong 
in  Fulkerson,  and  he  now  laughed  with  a  mocking  air 
of  having  expected  it  when  she  said :  "  Well,  then, 
if  Mr.  Fulkerson  says  he  will  see  that  it  all  comes 
out  right,  I  suppose  you  must  trust  his  tact.  I  wouldn't 
trust  yours,  Basil.  The  first  wrong  step  was  taken  when 
Mr.  Lindau  was  asked  to  help  on  the  magazine." 

"  Well,  it  was  your  infallible  Fulkerson  that  took 
the  step,  or  at  least  suggested  it.  I'm  happy  to  say 
/  had  totally  forgotten  my  early  friend." 

Mrs.  March  was  daunted  and  silenced  for  a  moment. 
Then  she  said :  "  Oh,  pshaw !  You  know  well  enough 
he  did  it  to  please  you." 

"  I'm  very  glad  he  didn't  do  it  to  please  you,  Isabel," 
said  her  husband,  with  affected  seriousness.  "  Though 
perhaps  he  did." 

He  began  to  look  at  the  humorous  aspect  of  the  af 
fair,  which  it  certainly  had,  and  to  comment  on  the 
singular  incongruities  which  Every  Other  Week  was 
destined  to  involve  at  every  moment  of  its  career.  "  I 

374 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

wonder  if  I'm  mistaken  in  supposing  that  no  other 
periodical  was  ever  like  it.  Perhaps  all  periodicals 
are  like  it.  But  I  don't  believe  there's  another  pub 
lication  in  New  York  that  could  bring  together,  in 
honor  of  itself,  a  fraternity  and  equality  crank  like 
poor  old  Lindau,  and  a  belated  sociological  crank  like 
Woodburn,  and  a  truculent  speculator  like  old  Dryfoos, 
and  a  humanitarian  dreamer  like  young  Dryfoos, 
and  a  sentimentalist  like  me,  and  a  nondescript  like 
Beaton,  and  a  pure  advertising  essence  like  Fulkerson, 
and  a  society  spirit  like  Kendricks.  If  we  could  only 
allow  one  another  to  talk  uninterruptedly  all  the  time, 
the  dinner  would  be  the  greatest  success  in  the  world, 
and  we  should  come  home  full  of  the  highest  mutual 
respect.  But  I  suspect  we  can't  manage  that — even 
your  infallible  Fulkerson  couldn't  work  it — and  I'm 
afraid  that  there'll  be  some  listening  that  '11  spoil  the 
pleasure  of  the  time." 

March  was  so  well  pleased  with  this  view  of  the 
case  that  he  suggested  the  idea  involved  to  Fulker 
son.  Fulkerson  was  too  good  a  fellow  not  to  laugh 
at  another  man's  joke,  but  he  laughed  a  little  ruefully, 
and  he  seemed  worn  with  more  than  one  kind  of  care 
in  the  interval  that  passed  between  the  present  time 
and  the  night  of  the  dinner. 

Dryfoos  necessarily  depended  upon  him  for  advice 
concerning  the  scope  and  nature  of  the  dinner,  but  he 
received  the  advice  suspiciously,  and  contested  points 
of  obvious  propriety  with  pertinacious  stupidity.  Ful 
kerson  said  that  when  it  came  to  the  point  he  would 
rather  have  had  the  thing,  as  he  called  it,  at  Del- 
monico's  or  some  other  restaurant ;  but  when  he  found 
that  Dryfoos's  pride  was  bound  up  in  having  it  at  his 
own  house,  he  gave  way  to  him.  Dryfoos  also  wanted 
his  woman-cook  to  prepare  the  dinner,  but  Fulkerson 

375 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

persuaded  him  that  this  would  not  do;  he  must  have 
it  from  a  caterer.  Then  Dryfoos  wanted  his  maids 
to  wait  at  table,  but  Fulkerson  convinced  him  that 
this  would  be  incongruous  at  a  man's  dinner.  It  was 
decided  that  the  dinner  should  be  sent  in  from  Fresco- 
baldi's,  and  Dryfoos  went  with  Fulkerson  to  discuss 
it  with  the  caterer.  He  insisted  upon  having  every 
thing  explained  to  him,  and  the  reason  for  having  it, 
and  not  something  else  in  its  place;  and  he  treated 
Fulkerson  and  Frescobaldi  as  if  they  were  in  league 
to  impose  upon  him.  There  were  moments  when  Ful- 
kerson  saw  the  varnish  of  professional  politeness  crack 
ing  on  the  Neapolitan's  volcanic  surface,  and  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  lava  fires  of  the  cook's  nature  beneath; 
he  trembled  for  Dryfoos,  who  was  walking  rough-shod 
over  him  in  the  security  of  an  American  who  had 
known  how  to  make  his  money,  and  must  know  how 
to  spend  it;  but  he  got  him  safely  away  at  last,  and 
gave  Frescobaldi  a  wink  of  sympathy  for  his  shrug  of 
exhaustion  as  they  turned  to  leave  him. 

It  was  at  first  a  relief  and  then  an  anxiety  with 
Fulkerson  that  Lindau  did  not  come  about  after  ac 
cepting  the  invitation  to  dinner,  until  he  appeared  at 
Dryfoos's  house,  prompt  to  the  hour.  There  was,  to 
be  sure,  nothing  to  bring  him;  but  Fulkerson  was  un 
easily  aware  that  Dryfoos  expected  to  meet  him  at  the 
office,  and  perhaps  receive  some  verbal  acknowledgment 
of  the  honor  done  him.  Dryfoos,  he  could  see,  thought 
he  was  doing  all  his  invited  guests  a  favor;  and  while 
he  stood  in  a  certain  awe  of  them  as  people  of  much 
greater  social  experience  than  himself,  regarded  them 
with  a  kind  of  contempt,  as  people  who  were  going  to 
have  a  better  dinner  at  his  house  than  they  could  ever 
afford  to  have  at  their  own.  He  had  finally  not  spared 
expense  upon  it;  after  pushing  Frescobaldi  to  the  point 

376 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  eruption  with  his  misgivings  and  suspicions  at  the 
first  interview,  he  had  gone  to  him  a  second  time  alone, 
and  told  him  not  to  let  the  money  stand  between  him 
and  anything  he  would  like  to  do.  In  the  absence  of 
Frescobaldi's  fellow-conspirator  he  restored  himself  in 
the  caterer's  esteem  by  adding  whatever  he  suggested ; 
and  Fulkerson,  after  trembling  for  the  old  man's  nig 
gardliness,  was  now  afraid  of  a  fantastic  profusion  in 
the  feast.  Dryfoos  had  reduced  the  scale  of  the  ban 
quet  as  regarded  the  number  of  guests,  but  a  confusing 
remembrance  of  what  Fulkerson  had  wished  to  do  re 
mained  with  him  in  part,  and  up  to  the  clay  of  the 
dinner  he  dropped  in  at  Frescobaldi's  and  ordered  more 
dishes  and  more  of  them.  He  impressed  the  Italian  as 
an  American  original  of  a  novel  kind;  and  when  he 
asked  Fulkerson  how  Dryfoos  had  made  his  money, 
and  learned  that  it  was  primarily  in  natural  gas,  he 
made  note  of  some  of  his  eccentric  tastes  as  peculiari 
ties  that  were  to  be  caressed  in  any  future  natural-gas 
millionaire  who  might  fall  into  his  hands.  He  did  not 
begrudge  the  time  he  had  to  give  in  explaining  to  Dry 
foos  the  relation  of  the  different  wines  to  the  different 
dishes;  Dryfoos  was  apt  to  substitute  a  costlier  wine 
where  he  could  for  a  cheaper  one,  and  he  gave  Fresco- 
baldi  carte  blanche  for  the  decoration  of  the  table  with 
pieces  of  artistic  confectionery.  Among  these  the  ca 
terer  designed  one  for  a  surprise  to  his  patron  and  a 
delicate  recognition  of  the  source  of  his  wealth,  which 
he  found  Dryfoos  very  willing  to  talk  abcut,  when  he 
intimated  that  he  knew  what  it  was. 

Dryfoos  left  it  to  Fulkerson  to  invite  the  guests, 
and  he  found  ready  acceptance  of  his  politeness  from 
Kendricks,  who  rightly  regarded  the  dinner  as  a  part 
of  the  Every  Other  Week  business,  and  was  too  sweet 
and  kind-hearted,  anyway,  not  to  seem  very  glad  to 

377 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

come.  March  was  a  matter  of  course ;  but  in  Colonel 
Woodburn  Ftilkerson  encountered  a  reluctance  which 
embarrassed  him  the  more  because  he  was  conscious 
of  having,  for  motives  of  his  own,  rather  strained  a 
point  in  suggesting  the  colonel  to  Dryfoos  as  a  fit  sub 
ject  for  invitation.  There  had  been  only  one  of  the 
colonel's  articles  printed  as  yet,  and  though  it  had  made 
a  sensation  in  its  way,  and  started  the  talk  about  that 
number,  still  it  did  not  fairly  constitute  him  a  member 
of  the  staff,  or  even  entitle  him  to  recognition  as  a 
regular  contributor.  Fulkerson  felt  so  sure  of  pleasing 
him  with  Dryfoos's  message  that  he  delivered  it  in 
full  family  council  at  the  widow's.  His  daughter  re 
ceived  it  with  all  the  enthusiasm  that  Fulkerson  had 
hoped  for,  but  the  colonel  said,  stiffly,  "  I  have  not 
the  pleasure  of  knowing  Mr.  Dryfoos."  Miss  Wood- 
burn  appeared  ready  to  fall  upon  him  at  this,  but  con 
trolled  herself,  as  if  aware  that  filial  authority  had  its 
limits,  and  pressed  her  lips  together  without  saying 
anything. 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  Fulkerson  admitted.  "  But  it  isn't 
a  usual  case.  Mr.  Dryfoos  don't  go  in  much  for  the 
conventionalities;  I  reckon  he  don't  know  much  about 
'em,  come  to  boil  it  down ;  and  he  hoped  " — here  Ful 
kerson  felt  the  necessity  of  inventing  a  little — "  that 
you  would  excuse  any  want  of  ceremony;  it's  to  be 
such  an  informal  affair,  anyway;  we're  all  going  in 
business  dress,  and  there  ain't  going  to  be  any  ladies. 
He'd  have  come  himself  to  ask  you,  but  he's  a  kind  of 
a  bashful  old  fellow.  It's  all  right,  Colonel  Wood- 
burn." 

"  I  take  it  that  it  is,  sir,"  said  the  colonel,  courteous 
ly,  but  with  unabated  state,  "  coming  from  you.  But 
in  these  matters  we  have  no  right  to  burden  our  friends 

with  our  decisions." 

378 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  said  Fulkerson,  feeling  that 
he  had  heen  delicately  told  to  mind  his  own  business. 

"  I  understand,"  the  colonel  went  on,  "  the  relation 
that  Mr.  Dryfoos  bears  to  the  periodical  in  which  you 
have  done  me  the  hono'  to  print  my  papah,  but  this 
is  a  question  of  passing  the  bounds  of  a  purely  business 
connection,  and  of  eating  the  salt  of  a  man  whom  you 
do  not  definitely  know  to  be  a  gentleman." 

"  Mali  goodness !"  his  daughter  broke  in.  "  If  you 
bah  your  own  salt  with  his  money — " 

"  It  is  supposed  that  I  earn  his  money  before  I  buy 
my  salt  with  it,"  returned  her  father,  severely.  "  And 
in  these  times,  when  money  is  got  in  heaps,  through 
the  natural  decay  of  our  nefarious  commercialism,  it 
behooves  a  gentleman  to  be  scrupulous  that  the  hos 
pitality  offered  him  is  not  the  profusion  of  a  thief  with 
his  booty.  I  don't  say  that  Mr.  Dryfoos's  good-fortune 
is  not  honest.  I  simply  say  that  I  know  nothing  about 
it,  and  that  I  should  prefer  to  know  something  before 
I  sat  down  at  his  board." 

"  You're  all  right,  colonel,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  and 
so  is  Mr.  Dryfoos.  I  give  you  my  word  that  there 
are  no  flies  on  his  personal  integrity,  if  that's  what 
you  mean.  He's  hard,  and  he'd  push  an  advantage, 
but  I  don't  believe  he  would  take  an  unfair  one.  He's 
speculated  and  made  money  every  time,  but  I  never 
heard  of  his  wrecking  a  railroad  or  belonging  to  any 
swindling  company  or  any  grinding  monopoly.  He 
does  chance  it  in  stocks,  but  he's  always  played  on  the 
square,  if  you  call  stocks  gambling." 

"  May  I  think  this  over  till  morning  ?"  asked  the 
colonel. 

"  Oh,  certainly,  certainly,"  said  Fulkerson,  eagerly. 
"  I  don't  know  as  there's  any  hurry." 

Miss  Woodburn  found  a  chance  to  murmur  to  him 

.370 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

before  he  went :  "  He'll  come.  And  Ah'm  so  much 
oblahged,  Mr.  Fulkerson.  Ah  jost  know  it's  all  you' 
doing,  and  it  will  give  papa  a  chance  to  toak  to  some 
new  people,  and  get  away  from  us  evahlastin'  women 
for  once." 

"  I  don't  see  why  any  one  should  want  to  do  that," 
said  Fulkerson,  with  grateful  gallantry.  "  But  I'll  be 
dogged,"  he  said  to  March  when  he  told  him,  about  this 
odd  experience,  "  if  I  ever  expected  to  find  Colonel 
Woodburn  on  old  Lindau's  ground.  He  did  come 
round  handsomely  this  morning  at  breakfast  and  apolo 
gized  for  taking  time  to  think  the  invitation  over  before 
he  accepted.  '  You  understand,'  he  says,  '  that  if  it 
had  been  to  the  table  of  some  friend  not  so  prosperous 
as  Mr.  Dryfoos — your  friend  Mr.  March,  for  instance 
— it  would  have  been  sufficient  to  know  that  he  was 
your  friend.  But  in  these  days  it  is  a  duty  that  a 
gentleman  owes  himself  to  consider  whether  he  wishes 
to  know  a  rich  man  or  not.  The  chances  of  making 
money  disreputably  are  so  great  that  the  chances  are 
against  a  man  wTho  has  made  money  if  he's  made  a 
great  deal  of  it.' ' 

March  listened  with  a  face  of  ironical  insinuation. 
"  That  was  very  good ;  and  he  seems  to  have  had  a 
good  deal  of  confidence  in  your  patience  and  in  your 
sense  of  his  importance  to  the  occasion— 

"  No,  no,"  Fulkerson  protested,  "  there's  none  of 
that  kind  of  thing  about  the  colonel.  I  told  him  to 
take  time  to  think  it  over;  he's  the  simplest-hearted 
old  fellow  in  the  world." 

"  I  should  say  so.  After  all,  he  didn't  give  any 
reason  he  had  for  accepting.  But  perhaps  the  young 
lady  had  the  reason." 

"  Pshaw,  March !"  said  Fulkerson. 


VI 


So  far  as  the  Dryfoos  family  was  concerned,  the 
dinner  might  as  well  have  been  given  at  Frescobaldi's 
rooms.  None  of  the  ladies  appeared.  Mrs.  Dryfoos 
was  glad  to  escape  to  her  own  chamber,  where  she  sat 
before  an  autumnal  fire,  shaking  her  head  and  talking 
to  herself  at  times,  with  the  foreboding  of  evil  which 
old  women  like  her  make  part  of  their  religion.  The 
girls  stood  just  out  of  sight  at  the  head  of  the  stairs, 
and  disputed  which  guest  it  was  at  each  arrival;  Mrs. 
Mandel  had  gone  to  her  room  to  write  letters,  after 
beseeching  them  not  to  stand  there.  When  Kendricks 
came,  Christine  gave  Mela  a  little  pinch,  equivalent  to 
a  little  mocking  -shriek ;  for,  on  the  ground  of  his  long 
talk  with  Mela  at  Mrs.  Horn's,  in  the  absence  of  any 
other  admirer,  they  based  a  superstition  of  his  inter 
est  in  her ;  when  Beaton  came,  Mela  returned  the  pinch, 
but  awkwardly,  so  that  it  hurt,  and  then  Christine  in 
voluntarily  struck  her. 

Frescobaldi's  men  were  in  possession  everywhere: 
they  4iad  turned  the  cook  out  of  her  kitchen  and  the 
waitress  out  of  her  pantry;  the  reluctant  Irishman  at 
the  door  was  supplemented  by  a  vivid  Italian,  who 
spoke  French  with  the  guests,  and  said,  ee  Bi-en,  Mon 
sieur"  and  "  Toute  suite"  and  "  Merci !"  to  all,  as  he 
took  their  hats  and  coats,  and  effused  a  hospitality  that 
needed  no  language  but  the  gleam  of  his  eyes  and  teeth 
and  the  play  of  his  eloquent  hands.  From  his  pro- 

381 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

fessional  dress-coat,  lustrous  with  the  grease  spotted  on 
it  at  former  dinners  and  parties,  they  passed  to  the 
frocks  of  the  elder  and  younger  Dryfoos  in  the  draw 
ing-room,  which  assumed  informality  for  the  affair,  but 
did  not  put  their  wearers  wholly  at  their  ease.  The 
father's  coat  was  of  black  broadcloth,  and  he  wore  it 
unbuttoned ;  the  skirts  were  long,  and  the  sleeves  came 
down  to  his  knuckles ;  he  shook  hands  with  his  guests, 
and  the  same  dryness  seemed  to  be  in  his  palm  and 
throat,  as  he  huskily  asked  each  to  take  a  chair.  Con 
rad's  coat  was  of  modern  texture  and  cut,  and  was 
buttoned  about  him  as  if  it  concealed  a  bad  conscience 
within  its  lapels;  he  met  March  with  his  entreating 
smile,  and  he  seemed  no  more  capable  of  coping  with 
the  situation  than  his  father.  They  both  waited  for 
Fulkerson,  who  went  about  and  did  his  best  to  keep 
life  in  the  party  during  the  half-hour  that  passed  be 
fore  they  sat  down  at  dinner.  Beaton  stood  gloomily 
aloof,  as  if  waiting  to  be  approached  on  the  right  basis 
before  yielding  an  inch  of  his  ground ;  Colonel  Wood- 
burn,  awaiting  the  moment  when  he  could  sally  out  on 
his  hobby,  kept  himself  intrenched  within  the  dignity 
of  a  gentleman,  and  examined  askance  the  figure  of 
old  Lindau  as  he  stared  about  the  room,  with  his  fine 
head  up,  and  his  empty  sleeve  dangling  over  his  wrist. 
March  felt  obliged  to  him  for  wearing  a  new  coat  in 
the  midst  of  that  hostile  luxury,  and  he  was  glad  to 
see  Dryfoos  make  up  to  him  and  begin  to  talk  with 
him,  as  if  he  wished  to  show  him  particular  respect, 
though  it  might  have  been  because  he  was  less  afraid 
of  him  than  of  the  others.  He  heard  Lindau  saying, 
"  Boat,  the  name  is  Choarman  ?"  and  Dryfoos  begin 
ning  to  explain  his  Pennsylvania  Dutch  origin,  and  he 
suffered  himself,  with  a  sigh  of  relief,  to  fall  into  talk 
with  Kendricks,  who  was  always  pleasant ;  he  was  will- 

382 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

ing  to  talk  about  something  besides  himself,  and  had 
no  opinions  that  he  was  not  ready  to  hold  in  abeyance 
for  the  time  being  out  of  kindness  to  others.  In  that 
group  of  impassioned  individualities,  March  felt  him 
a  refuge  and  comfort — with  his  harmless  dilettante  in 
tention  of  some  day  writing  a  novel,  and  his  belief  that 
he  was  meantime  collecting  material  for  it. 

Fulkerson,  while  breaking  the  ice  for  the  whole 
company,  was  mainly  engaged  in  keeping  Colonel 
Woodburn  thawed  out.  He  took  Kendricks  away  from 
March  and  presented  him  to  the  colonel  as  a  person 
who,  like  himself,  was  looking  into  social  conditions; 
he  put  one  hand  on  Kendricks's  shoulder,  and  one  on 
the  colonel's,  and  made  some  flattering  joke,  apparent 
ly  at  the  expense  of  the  young  fellow,  and  then  left 
them.  March  heard  Kendricks  protest  in  vain,  and  the 
colonel  say,  gravely :  "  I  do  not  wonder,  sir,  that  these 
things  interest  you.  They  constitute  a  problem  which 
society  must  solve  or  which  will  dissolve  society,"  and 
he  knew  from  that  formula,  which  the  colonel  had  once 
used  with  him,  that  he  was  laying  out  a  road  for  the 
exhibition  of  the  hobby's  paces  later. 

Fulkerson  came  back  to  March,  who  had  turned  tow 
ard  Conrad  Dryfoos,  and  said,  "  If  we  don't  get  this 
thing  going  pretty  soon,  it  '11  be  the  death  of  me,"  and 
just  then  Frescobalcli's  butler  came  in  and  announced 
to  Dryfoos  that  dinner  was  served.  The  old  man 
looked  toward  Fulkerson  with  a  troubled  glance,  as  if 
he  did  not  know  what  to  do ;  he  made  a  gesture  to  touch 
Lindau's  elbow.  Fulkerson  called  out,  "  Here's  Colo 
nel  Woodburn,  Mr.  Dryfoos,"  as  if  Dryfoos  were 
looking  for  him;  and  he  set  the  example  of  what  he 
was  to  do  by  taking  Lindau's  arm  himself.  "  Mr. 
Lindau  is  going  to  sit  at  my  end  of  the  table,  along 
side  of  March.  Stand  not  upon  the  order  of  your 

383 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

going,  gentlemen,  but  fall  in  at  once."  He  contrived 
to  get  Dryfoos  and  the  colonel  before  him,  and  he  let 
March  follow  with  Kendricks.  Conrad  came  last  with 
Beaton,  who  had  been  turning  over  the  music  at  the 
piano,  and  chafing  inwardly  at  the  whole  affair.  At 
the  table  Colonel  Woodburn  was  placed  on  Dryfoos's 
right,  and  March  on  his  left.  March  sat  on  Fulker- 
son's  right,  with  Lindau  next  him ;  and  the  young  men 
occupied  the  other  seats. 

"  Put  you  next  to  March,  Mr.  Lindau,"  said  Ful- 
kerson,  "  so  you  can  begin  to  put  Apollinaris  in  his 
champagne-glass  at  the  right  moment;  you  know  his 
little  weakness  of  old ;  sorry  to  say  it's  grown  on  him." 

March  laughed  with  kindly  acquiescence  in  Fulker- 
son's  wish  to  start  the  gayety,  and  Lindau  patted  him 
on  the  shoulder.  "  I  know  hiss  veakness.  If  he  liges 
a  class  of  vine,  it  iss  begause  his  loaf  ingludes  efen 
hiss  enemy,  as  Shakespeare  galled  it." 

"  Ah,  but  Shakespeare  couldn't  have  been  thinking 
of  champagne,"  said  Kendricks. 

"  I  suppose,  sir,"  Colonel  Woodburn  interposed, 
with  lofty  courtesy,  "  champagne  could  hardly  have 
been  known  in  his  day." 

"  I  suppose  not,  colonel,"  returned  the  younger  man, 
deferentially.  "  He  seemed  to  think  that  sack  and 
sugar  might  be  a  fault;  but  he  didn't  mention  cham 
pagne." 

"  Perhaps  he  felt  there  was  no  question  about  that," 
suggested  Beaton,  who  then  felt  that  he  had  not  done 
himself  justice  in  the  sally. 

"  I  wonder  just  when  champagne  did  come  in,"  said 
March. 

"  I  know  when  it  ought  to  come  in,"  said  Fulkerson. 
"  Before  the  soup  !" 

They  all  laughed,  and  gave  themselves  the  air  of 

384 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

drinking  champagne  out  of  tumblers  every  day,  as 
men  like  to  Jo.  Dryfoos  listened  uneasily;  he  did 
not  quite  understand  the  allusions,  though  he  knew 
what  Shakespeare  was,  well  enough;  Conrad's  face 
expressed  a  gentle  deprecation  of  joking  on  such  a 
subject,  but  he  said  nothing. 

The  talk  ran  on  briskly  through  the  dinner.  The 
young  men  tossed  the  ball  back  and  forth;  they  made 
some  wild  shots,  but  they  kept  it  going,  and  they  laugh 
ed  when  they  were  hit.  The  wine  loosed  Colonel  Wood- 
burn's  tongue ;  he  became  very  companionable  with  the 
young  fellows;  with  the  feeling  that  a  literary  dinner 
ought  to  have  a  didactic  scope,  he  praised  Scott  and 
Addison  as  the  only  authors  fit  to  form  the  minds  of 
gentlemen. 

Kendricks  agreed  with  him,  but  wished  to  add  the 
name  of  Flaubert  as  a  master  of  style.  "  Style,  you 
know,"  he  added,  "  is  the  man." 

"  Very  true,  sir ;  you  are  quite  right,  sir,"  the  colonel 
assented;  he  wondered  who  Flaubert  was. 

Beaton  praised  Baudelaire  and  Maupassant ;  he  said 
these  were  the  masters.  He  recited  some  lurid  verses 
from  Baudelaire;  Lindau  pronounced  them  a  disgrace 
to  human  nature,  and  gave  a  passage  from  Victor  Hugo 
on  Louis  Napoleon,  with  his  heavy  German  accent,  and 
then  he  quoted  Schiller.  "  Ach,  boat  that  iss  peaudi- 
f  ool !  Not  zo  ?"  he  demanded  of  March. 

"  Yes,  beautiful ;  but,  of  course,  you  know  I  think 
there's  nobody  like  Heine !" 

Lindau  threw  back  his  great  old  head  and  laughed, 
showing  a  want  of  teeth  under  his  mustache.  He  put 
his  hand  on  March's  back.  "  This  poy — he  wass  a 
poy  den — wass  so  gracy  to  pekin  reading  Heine  that 
he  gommence  with  the  tictionary  bevore  he  knows  any 

crammar,  and  ve  bick  it  out  vort  by  vort  togeder." 

385 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  He  was  a  pretty  cay  poy  in  those  days,  heigh, 
Lindau?"  asked  Fulkerson,  burlesquing  the  old  man's 
accent,  with  an  impudent  wink  that  made  Lindau  him 
self  laugh.  "  But  in  the  dark  ages,  I  mean,  there  in 
Indianapolis.  Just  how  long  ago  did  you  old  codgers 
meet  there,  anyway?"  Fulkerson  saw  the  restiveness 
in  Dryfoos's  eye  at  the  purely  literary  course  the  talk 
had  taken;  he  had  intended  it  to  lead  up  that  way  to 
business,  to  Every  Oilier  Week;  but  he  saw  that  it  was 
leaving  Dryfoos  too  far  out,  and  he  wished  to  get  it  on 
the  personal  ground,  where  everybody  is  at  home. 

"  Ledt  me  zee,"  mused  Lindau.  "  Wass  it  in  fifty- 
nine  or  zixty,  Passil  ?  Idt  wass  a  year  or  dwo  pefore 
the  war  proke  oudt,  anyway." 

"  Those  were  exciting  times,"  said  Dryfoos,  making 
his  first  entry  into  the  general  talk.  "  I  went  down 
to  Indianapolis  with  the  first  company  from  our  place, 
and  I  saw  the  red-shirts  pouring  in  everywhere.  They 
had  a  song, 

"  Oh,  never  mind  the  weather,  but  git  over  double  trouble, 
For  we're  bound  for  the  land  of  Canaan." 

The  fellows  locked  arms  and  went  singin'  it  up  and 
down  four  or  five  abreast  in  the  moonlight ;  crowded 
everybody  else  off  the  sidewalk." 

"  I  remember,  I  remember,"  said.  Lindau,  nodding 
his  head  slowly  up  and  down.  "  A  coodt  many  off 
them  nefer  gome  pack  from  that  landt  of  Ganaan,  Mr. 
Dryfoos?" 

"  You're  right,  Mr.  Lindau.  But  I  reckon  it  was 
worth  it — the  country  we've  got  now.  Here,  young 
man!"  He  caught  the  arm  of  the  waiter  who  was 
going  round  with  the  champagne  bottle.  "  Fill  up  Mr. 
Lindau's  glass,  there.  I  want  to  drink  the  health  of 

386 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

those  old  times  with  him.  Here's  to  your  empty  sleeve, 
Mr.  Lindau.  God  bless  it !  No  offence  to  you,  Colonel 
Woodburn,"  said  Dryfoos,  turning  to  him  before  ho 
drank. 

"  Not  at  all,  sir,  not  at  all,"  said  the  colonel.  "  I 
will  drink  with  you,  if  you  will  permit  me." 

"  We'll  all  drink  —  standing !"  cried  Fulkerson. 
"  Help  March  to  get  up,  somebody !  Fill  high  the 
bowl  with  Samian  Apollinaris  for  Coonrod!  Now, 
then,  hurrah  for  Lindau !" 

They  cheered,  and  hammered  on  the  table  with  the 
butts  of  their  knife-handles.  Lindau  remained  seated. 
The  tears  came  into  his  eyes ;  he  said,  "  I  thank  you, 
chendlemen,"  and  hiccoughed. 

"  I'd  V  went  into  the  war  myself,"  said  Dryfoos, 
"  but  I  was  raisin'  a  family  of  young  children,  and  I 
didn't  see  how  I  could  leave  my  farm.  But  I  helped 
to  fill  up  the  quota  at  every  call,  and  when  the  vol 
unteering  stopped  I  went  round  with  the  subscription 
paper  myself;  and  we  offered  as  good  bounties  as 
any  in  the  State.  My  substitute  was  killed  in  one 
of  the  last  skirmishes  —  in  fact,  after  Lee's  surren 
der  —  and  I've  took  care  of  his  family,  more  or  less, 
ever  since." 

"  By-the-way,  March,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  what  sort 
of  an  idea  would  it  be  to  have  a  good  war  story — might 
be  a  serial — in  the  magazine  ?  The  war  has  never  fully 
panned  out  in  fiction  yet.  It  was  used  a  good  deal  just 
after  it  was  over,  and  then  it  was  dropped.  I  think 
it's  time  to  take  it  up  again.  I  believe  it  would  be 
a  card." 

It  was  running  in  March's  mind  that  Dryfoos  had 
an  old  rankling  shame  in  his  heart  for  not  having  gone 
into  the  war,  and  that  he  had  often  made  that  explana 
tion  of  his  course  without  having  ever  been  satisfied 
26  387 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  it.  He  felt  sorry  for  him;  the  fact  seemed  pa 
thetic  ;  it  suggested  a  dormant  nobleness  in  the  man. 

Beaton  was  saying  to  Fulkerson :  "  You  might  get 
a  series  of  sketches  by  substitutes;  the  substitutes 
haven't  been  much  heard  from  in  the  war  literature. 
How  would  '  The  Autobiography  of  a  Substitute  '  do  ? 
You  might  follow  him  up  to  the  moment  he  was  killed 
in  the  other  man's  place,  and  inquire  whether  he  had 
any  right  to  the  feelings  of  a  hero  when  he  was  only 
hired  in  the  place  of  one.  Might  call  it  '  The  Career 
of  a  Deputy  Hero.' ' 

"  I  fancy,"  said  March,  "  that  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  mixed  motive  in  the  men  who  went  into  the 
war  as  well  as  in  those  who  kept  out  of  it.  We  canon 
ized  all  that  died  or  suffered  in  it,  but  some  of  them 
must  have  been  self-seeking  and  low-minded,  like  men 
in  other  vocations."  He  found  himself  saying  this  in 
Dryf oos's  behalf ;  the  old  man  looked  at  him  gratefully 
at  first,  he  thought,  and  then  suspiciously. 

Lindau  turned  his  head  toward  him  and  said :  "  You 
are  righdt,  Passil;  you  are  righdt.  I  haf  zeen  on  the 
fieldt  of  pattle  the  voarst  eggsipitions  of  human  paseness 
— chelousy,  fanity,  ecodistic  bridte.  I  haf  zeen  men  in 
the  face  off  death  itself  goiferned  by  motifes  as  low  as 
— as  pusiness  motifes." 

"  Well,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  it  would  be  a  grand  thing 
for  Every  Other  Week  if  we  could  get  some  of  those 
ideas  worked  up  into  a  series.  It  would  make  a  lot 
of  talk." 

Colonel  Woodburn  ignored  him  in  saying,  "  I  think, 
Major  Lindau — 

"  High  brif ate ;  pref et  gorporal,"  the  old  man  in 
terrupted,  in  rejection  of  the  title. 

Kendricks  laughed  and  said,  with  a  glance  of  appre 
ciation  at  Lindau,  "  Brevet  corporal  is  good." 

388 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Colonel  Woodburn  frowned  a  little,  and  passed  over 
the  joke.  "  I  think  Mr.  Lindau  is  right.  Such  ex 
hibitions  were  common  to  both  sides,  though  if  you 
gentlemen  will  pardon  me  for  saying  so,  I  think  they 
were  less  frequent  on  ours.  We  were  fighting  more 
immediately  for  existence :  we  were  fewer  than  you 
were,  and  we  knew  it;  we  felt  more  intensely  that  if 
each  were  not  for  all,  then  none  was  for  any." 

The  colonel's  words  made  their  impression.  Dry- 
foos  said,  with  authority,  "  That  is  so." 

"  Colonel  Woodburn,"  Fulkerson  called  out,  "  if 
you'll  work  up  those  ideas  into  a  short  paper — say, 
three  thousand  words  —  I'll  engage  to  make  March 
take  it." 

The  colonel  went  on  without  replying :  "  But  Mr. 
Lindau  is  right  in  characterizing  some  of  the  motives 
that  led  men  to  the  cannon's  mouth  as  no  higher  than 
business  motives,  and  his  comparison  is  the  most  forci 
ble  that  he  could  have  used.  I  was  very  much  struck 
by  it." 

The  hobby  was  out,  the  colonel  was  in  the  saddle 
with  so  firm  a  seat  that  no  effort  sufficed  to  dislodge 
him.  The  dinner  went  on  from  course  to  course  with 
barbaric  profusion,  and  from  time  to  time  Fulkerson 
tried  to  bring  the  talk  back  to  Every  Other  Week. 
But  perhaps  because  that  was  only  the  ostensible  and 
not  the  real  object  of  the  dinner,  which  was  to  bring 
a  number  of  men  together  under  Dryfoos's  roof,  and 
make  them  the  witnesses  of  his  splendor,  make  them 
feel  the  power  of  his  wealth,  Fulkerson's  attempts 
failed.  The  colonel  showed  how  commercialism  was 
the  poison  at  the  heart  of  our  national  life;  how  we 
began  as  a  simple,  agricultural  people,  who  had  fled 
to  these  shores  with  the  instinct,  divinely  implanted,  of 
building  a  state  such  as  the  sun  never  shone  upon  be- 

389 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

fore;  how  we  had  conquered  the  wilderness  and  the 
savage ;  how  we  had  flung  off,  in  our  struggle  with  the 
mother-country,  the  trammels  of  tradition  and  prece 
dent,  and  had  settled  down,  a  free  nation,  to  the  prac 
tice  of  the  arts  of  peace ;  how  the  spirit  of  commercial 
ism  had  stolen  insidiously  upon  us,  and  the  infernal 
impulse  of  competition  had  embroiled  us  in  a  perpetual 
warfare  of  interests,  developing  the  worst  passions  of 
our  nature,  and  teaching  us  to  trick  and  betray  and 
destroy  one  another  in  the  strife  for  money,  till  now 
that  impulse  had  exhausted  itself,  and  we  found  com 
petition  gone  and  the  whole  economic  problem  in  the 
hands  of  monopolies — the  Standard  Oil  Company,  the 
Sugar  Trust,  the  Rubber  Trust,  and  what  not.  And 
now  what  was  the  next  thing?  Affairs  could  not  re 
main  as  they  were ;  it  was  impossible ;  and  what  was 
the  next  thing  ?" 

The  company  listened  for  the  main  part  silently. 
Dryfoos  tried  to  grasp  the  idea  of  commercialism  as 
the  colonel  seemed  to  hold  it;  he  conceived  of  it  as 
something  like  the  dry-goods  business  on  a  vast  scale, 
and  he  knew  he  had  never  been  in  that.  He  did  not 
like  to  hear  competition  called  infernal ;  he  had  always 
supposed  it  was  something  sacred ;  but  he  approved  of 
what  Colonel  Woodburn  said  of  the  Standard  Oil  Com 
pany;  it  was  all  true;  the  Standard  Oil  has  squeezed 
Dryfoos  once,  and  made  him  sell  it  a  lot  of  oil-wells 
by  putting  down  the  price  of  oil  so  low  in  that  region 
that  he  lost  money  on  every  barrel  he  pumped. 

All  the  rest  listened  silently,  except  Lindau;  at 
every  point  the  colonel  made  against  the  present  con 
dition  of  things  he  said  more  and  more  fiercely,  "  You 
are  righdt,  you  are  righdt."  His  eyes  glowed,  his  hand 
played  with  his  knife-hilt.  When  the  colonel  demand 
ed,  "  And  what  is  the  next  thing  ?"  he  threw  himself 

300 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

forward,  and  repeated :  "  Yes,  sir !  What  is  the  next 
thing?" 

"  Natural  gas,  by  thunder !"  shouted  Fulkerson. 

One  of  the  waiters  had  profited  by  Lindau's  posture 
to  lean  over  him  and  put  down  in  the  middle  of  the 
table  a  structure  in  white  sugar.  It  expressed  Fresco- 
baldi's  conception  of  a  derrick,  and  a  touch  of  nature 
had  been  added  in  the  flame  of  brandy,  which  burned 
luridly  up  from  a  small  pit  in  the  centre  of  the  base, 
and  represented  the  gas  in  combustion  as  it  issued  from 
the  ground.  Fulkerson  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter 
with  the  words  that  recognized  Frescobaldi's  personal 
tribute  to  Dryfoos.  Everybody  rose  and  peered  over  at 
the  thing,  while  he  explained  the  work  of  sinking  a 
gas-well,  as  he  had  already  explained  it  to  Frescobaldi. 
In  the  midst  of  his  lecture  he  caught  sight  of  the  caterer 
himself,  where  he  stood  in  the  pantry  doorway,  smiling 
with  an  artist's  anxiety  for  the  effect  of  his  master 
piece. 

"  Come  in,  come  in,  Frescobaldi !  We  want  to  con 
gratulate  you,"  Fulkerson  called  to  him.  "  Here, 
gentlemen  !  Here's  Frescobaldi's  health." 

They  all  drank ;  and  Frescobaldi,  smiling  brilliantly 
and  rubbing  his  hands  as  he  bowed  right  and  left,  per 
mitted  himself  to  say  to  Dryfoos :  "  You  are  please ; 
no?  You  like?" 

"  First-rate,  first-rate !"  said  the  old  man ;  but  when 
the  Italian  had  bowed  himself  out  and  his  guests  had 
sunk  into  their  seats  again,  he  said  dryly  to  Fulker 
son,  "  I  reckon  they  didn't  have  to  torpedo  that  well, 
or  the  derrick  wouldn't  look  quite  so  nice  and  clean." 

"  Yes,"  Fulkerson  answered,  "  and  that  ain't  quite 
the  style — that  little  wiggly-waggly  blue  flame — that  the 
gas  acts  when  you  touch  off  a  good  vein  of  it.  This 
might  do  for  weak  gas  " ;  and  he  went  on  to  explain ; 

391 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  They  call  it  weak  gas  when  they  tap  it  two  or  three 
hundred  feet  down;  and  anybody  can  sink  a  well  in 
his  back  yard  and  get  enough  gas  to  light  and  heat  his 
house.  I  remember  one  fellow  that  had  it  blazing  up 
from  a  pipe  through  a  flower-bed,  just  like  a  jet  of 
water  from  a  fountain.  My,  my,  ray!  You  fel — you 
gentlemen — ought  to  go  out  and  see  that  country,  all  of 
you.  Wish  we  could  torpedo  this  well,  Mr.  Dryfoos, 
and  let  'em  see  how  it  works !  Mind  that  one  you  tor 
pedoed  for  me?  You  know,  when  they  sink  a  well," 
he  went  on  to  the  company,  "  they  can't  always  most 
generally  sometimes  tell  whether  they're  goin'  to  get 
gas  or  oil  or  salt  water.  Why,  when  they  first  began 
to  bore  for  salt  water  out  on  the  Kanawha,  back  about 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  they  used  to  get  gas  now 
and  then,  and  then  they  considered  it  a  failure ;  they 
called  a  gas-well  a  blower,  and  give  it  up  in  disgust; 
the  time  wasn't  ripe  for  gas  yet.  Now  they  bore  away 
sometimes  till  they  get  half-way  to  China,  and  don't 
seem  to  strike  anything  worth  speaking  of.  Then  they 
put  a  dynamite  torpedo  down  in  the  well  and  explode 
it.  They  have  a  little  bar  of  iron  that  they  call  a 
Go-devil,  and  they  just  drop  it  down  on  the  business 
end  of  the  torpedo,  and  then  stand  from  under,  if  you 
please!  You  hear  a  noise,  and  in  about  half  a  minute 
you  begin  to  se-s  one,  and  it  begins  to  rain  oil  and  mud 
and  salt  water  and  rocks  and  pitchforks  and  adoptive 
citizens ;  and  when  it  clears  up  the  derrick's  painted — 
got  a  coat  on  that  '11  wear  in  any  climate.  That's  what 
our  honored  host  meant.  Generally  get  some  visiting 
lady,  when  there's  one  round,  to  drop  the  Go  -  devil. 
But  that  day  we  had  to  put  up  with  Conrad  here. 
They  offered  to  let  me  drop  it,  but  I  declined.  I  told 
'em  I  hadn't  much  practice  with  Go-devils  in  the  news 
paper  syndicate  business,  and  I  wasn't  very  well  my- 

392 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

self,  anyway.  Astonishing,"  Eulkerson  continued,  with 
the  air  of  relieving  his  explanation  by  an  anecdote, 
"  how  reckless  they  get  using  dynamite  when  they're 
torpedoing  Avells.  We  stopped  at  one  place  where  a 
fellow  was  handling  the  cartridges  pretty  freely,  and 
Mr.  Dryfoos  happened  to  caution  him  a  little,  and  that 
ass  came  up  with  one  of  'em  in  his  hand,  and  began 
to  pound  it  on  the  buggy-wheel  to  show  us  how  safe 
it  was.  I  turned  green,  I  was  so  scared ;  but  Mr.  Dry 
foos  kept  his  color,  and  kind  of  coaxed  the  fellow  till 
he  quit.  You  could  see  he  was  the  fool  kind,  that  if 
you  tried  to  stop  him  he'd  keep  on  hammering  that 
cartridge,  just  to  show  that  it  wouldn't  explode,  till  he 
blew  you  into  Kingdom  Come.  When  we  'got  him  to 
go  away,  Mr.  Dryfoos  drove  up  to  his  foreman.  e  Pay 
Sheney  off,  and  discharge  him  on  the  spot,'  says  he. 
'  He's  too  safe  a  man  to  have  round ;  he  knows  too 
much  about  dynamite.'  I  never  saw  anybody  so 
cool." 

Dryfoos  modestly  dropped  his  head  under  Fulker- 
son's  flattery  and,  without  lifting  it,  turned  his  eyes 
toward  Colonel  Woodburn.  "  I  had  all  sorts  of  men  to 
deal  with  in  developing  my  property  out  there,  but  I 
had  very  little  trouble  with  them,  generally  speaking." 

"  Ah,  ah !  you  f oundt  the  laboring-man  reasonable 
— dractable — tocile  ?"  Lindau  put  in.  ,  , 

"  Yes,  generally  speaking,"  Dryfoos  answered. 
"  They  mostly  knew  which  side  of  their  bread  was 
buttered.  I  did  have  one  little  difficulty  at  one 
time.  It  happened  to  be  when  Mr.  Fulkerson  was 
out  there.  Some  of  the  men  tried  to  form  a  union — 

"No,  no!"  cried  Fulkerson.  "Let  me  tell  that! 
I  know  you  wouldn't  do  yourself  justice,  Mr.  Dry 
foos,  and  I  want  'em  to  know  how  a  strike  can  be 
managed,  if  you  take  it  in  time.  You  see,  some  of 

393 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

those  fellows  got  a  notion  that  there  ought  to  be  a 
union  among  the  working-men  to  keep  up  wages,  and 
dictate  to  the  employers,  and  Mr.  Dryfoos's  foreman 
was  the  ringleader  in  the  business.  They  understood 
pretty  well  that  as  soon  as  he  found  it  out  that  fore 
man  would  walk  the  plank,  and  so  they  watched  out 
till  they  thought  they  had  Mr.  Dryfoos  just  where  they 
wanted  him — everything  on  the  keen  jump,  and  every 
man  worth  his  weight  in  diamonds  —  and  then  they 
came  to  him,  and  told  him  to  sign  a  promise  to  keep 
that  foreman  to  the  end  of  the  season,  or  till  he  was 
through  with  the  work  on  the  Dryfoos  and  Hendry 
Addition,  under  penalty  of  having  them  all  knock  off. 
Mr.  Dryfoos  smelled  a  mouse,  but  he  couldn't  tell 
where  the  mouse  was;  he  saw  that  they  did  have  him, 
and  he  signed,  of  course.  There  wasn't  anything  really 
against  the  fellow,  anyway;  he  was  a  first-rate  man, 
and  he  did  his  duty  every  time;  only  he'd  got  some 
of  those  ideas  into  his  head,  and  they  turned  it.  Mr. 
Dryfoos  signed,  and  then  he  laid  low." 

March  saw  Lindau  listening  with  a  mounting  in 
tensity,  and  heard  him  murmur  in  German,  "  Shame 
ful !  shameful!" 

Fulkerson  went  on :  "  Well,  it  wasn't  long  before 
they  began  to  show  their  hand,  but  Mr.  Dryfoos  kept 
dark.  He  agreed  to  everything;  there  never  was  such 
an  obliging  capitalist  before ;  there  wasn't  a  thing  they 
asked  of  him  that  he  didn't  do,  with  the  greatest  of 
pleasure,  and  all  went  merry  as  a  marriage-bell  till  one 
morning  a  whole  gang  of  fresh  men  marched  into  the 
Dryfoos  and  Hendry  Addition,  under  the  escort  of  a 
dozen  Pinkertons  with  repeating  rifles  at  half  -  cock, 
and  about  fifty  fellows  found  themselves  out  of  a  job. 
You  never  saw  such  a  mad  set." 

"  Pretty  neat,"  said  Kendricks,  who  looked  at  the 

394 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

affair  purely  from  an  aesthetic  point  of  view.  "  Such  a 
coup  as  that  would  tell  tremendously  in  a  play." 

"  That  was  vile  treason,"  said  Lindau  in  German  to 
March.  "  He's  an  infamous  traitor !  I  cannot  stay 
here.  I  must  go." 

He  struggled  to  rise,  while  March  held  him  by  the 
coat,  and  implored  him  under  his  voice :  "  For  Heav 
en's  sake,  don't,  Lindau !  You  owe  it  to  yourself 
not  to  make  a  scene,  if  you  come  here."  Some 
thing  in  it  all  affected  him  comically;  he  could  not 
help  laughing. 

The  others  were  discussing  the  matter,  and  seemed 
not  to  have  noticed  Lindau,  who  controlled  himself 
and  sighed :  "  You  are  right.  I  must  have  patience." 

Beaton  was  saying  to  Dryfoos,  "  Pity  your  Pinker- 
tons  couldn't  have  given  them  a  few  shots  before  they 
left." 

"  No,  that  wasn't  necessary,"  said  Dryfoos.  "  I 
succeeded  in  breaking  up  the  union.  I  entered  into 
an  agreement  with  other  parties  not  to  employ  any 
man  who  would  not  swear  that  he  was  non-union.  If 
they  had  attempted  violence,  of  course  they  could  have 
been  shot.  But  there  was  no  fear  of  that.  Those  fel 
lows  can  always  be  depended  upon  to  cut  one  another's 
throats  in  the  long  run." 

"  But  sometimes,"  said  Colonel  Woodburn,  who  had 
been  watching  throughout  for  a  chance  to  mount  his 
hobby  again,  "  they  make  a  good  deal  of  trouble  first. 
How  was  it  in  the  great  railroad  strike  of  '77  ?" 

"  Well,  I  guess  there  was  a  little  trouble  that  time, 
colonel,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  But  the  men  that  under 
take  to  override  the  laws  and  paralyze  the  industries 
of  a  country  like  this  generally  get  left  in  the  end." 

"  Yes,  sir,  generally ;  and  up  to  a  certain  point,  al 
ways.  But  it's  the  exceptional  that  is  apt  to  happen, 

395 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

as  well  as  the  unexpected.  And  a  little  reflection  will 
convince  any  gentleman  here  that  there  is  always  a 
danger  of  the  exceptional  in  your  system.  The  fact 
is,  those  fellows  have  the  game  in  their  own  hands 
already.  A  strike  of  the  whole  body  of  the  Brother 
hood  of  Engineers  alone  would  starve  out  the  entire 
Atlantic  seaboard  in  a  week;  labor  insurrection  could 
make  head  at  a  dozen  given  points,  and  your  govern 
ment  couldn't  move  a  man  over  the  roads  without  the 
help  of  the  engineers." 

"  That  is  so,"  said  Kendrick,  struck  by  the  dramatic 
character  of  the  conjecture.  He  imagined  a  fiction 
dealing  with  the  situation  as  something  already  ac 
complished. 

"  Why  don't  some  fellow  do  the  Battle  of  Dorking 
act  with  that  thing  ?"  said  Fulkerson.  "  It  would  be 
a  card." 

"  Exactly  what  I  was  thinking,  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  said 
Kendricks. 

Fulkerson  laughed.  "  Telepathy  —  clear  case  of 
mind  -  transference.  Better  see  March,  here,  about 
it.  I'd  like  to  have  it  in  Every  Other  Week.  It 
would  make  talk." 

"  Perhaps  it  might  set  your  people  to  thinking  as 
well  as  talking,"  said  the  colonel. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  Dryfoos,  setting  his  lips  so  tightly 
together  that  his  imperial  stuck  straight  outward,  "  if 
I  had  my  way,  there  wouldn't  be  any  Brotherhood  of 
Engineers,  nor  any  other  kind  of  labor  union  in  the 
whole  country." 

"What!"  shouted  Lindau.  "You  would  sobbress 
the  imionss  of  the  voarking-men  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  would." 

"  And  what  would  you  do  with  the  unionss  of 
the  gabidalists — the  drosts — and  gompines,  and  boolss  ? 

390 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Would  you  dake  the  righdt  from  one  and  gif  it  to  the 
odder?" 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  would/'  said  Dryfoos,  with  a  wicked 
look  at  him. 

Lindau  was  about  to  roar  back  at  him  with  some 
furious  protest,  but  March  put  his  hand  on  his  shoul 
der  imploringly,  and  Lindau  turned  to  him  to  say  in 
German :  "  But  it  is  infamous — infamous !  What  kind 
of  man  is  this?  Who  is  he?  He  has  the  heart  of  a 
tyrant." 

Colonel  Woodburn  cut  in.  "  You  couldn't  do  that, 
Mr.  Dryfoos,  under  your  system.  And  if  you  at 
tempted  it,  with  your  conspiracy  laws,  and  that  kind 
of  thing,  it  might  bring  the  climax  sooner  than  you 
expected.  Your  commercialized  society  has  built  its 
house  on  the  sands.  It  will  have  to  go.  But  I  should 
be  sorry  if  it  went  before  its  time." 

"  You  are  righdt,  sir,"  said  Lindau.  "  It  would  be 
a  bity.  I  hobe  it  will  last  till  it  feelss  its  rottenness, 
like  Herodt.  Boat,  when  its  hour  gomes,  when  it  trops 
to  bieces  with  the  veight  off  its  own  gorrubtion — what 
then  ?" 

"  It's  not  to  be  supposed  that  a  system  of  things  like 
this  can  drop  to  pieces  of  its  own  accord,  like  the  old 
Kepublic  of  Venice,"  said  the  colonel.  "  But  when  the 
last  vestige  of  commercial  society  is  gone,  then  we  can 
begin  to  build  anew;  and  we  shall  build  upon  the 
central  idea,  not  of  the  false  liberty  you  now  worship, 
but  of  responsibility — responsibility.  The  enlightened, 
the  moneyed,  the  cultivated  class  shall  be  responsible 
to  the  central  authority — emperor,  duke,  president ;  the 
name  does  not  matter — for  the  national  expense  and 
the  national  defence,  and  it  shall  be  responsible  to  the 
working-classes  of  all  kinds  for  homes  and  lands  and 
implements,  and  the  opportunity  to  labor  at  all  times. 

397 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

The  working-classes  shall  be  responsible  to  the  leisure 
class  for  the  support  of  its  dignity  in  peace,  and  shall 
be  subject  to  its  command  in  war.  The  rich  shall 
warrant  the  poor  against  planless  production  and  the 
ruin  that  now  follows,  against  danger  from  without 
and  famine  from  within,  and  the  poor — 

"No,  no,  no!7'  shouted  Lindau.  "The  State  shall 
do  that — the  whole  beople.  The  men  who  voark  shall 
have  and  shall  eat;  and  the  men  that  will  not  voark, 
they  shall  sdarfe.  But  no  man  need  sdarfe.  He  will 
go  to  the  State,  and  the  State  will  see  that  he  haf  voark, 
and  that  he  haf  foodt.  All  the  roadts  and  mills  and 
mines  and  landts  shall  be  the  beople's  and  be  ron  by 
the  beople  for  the  beople.  There  shall  be  no  rich  and 
no  boor ;  and  there  shall  not  be  war  any  more,  for  what 
bower  wouldt  dare  to  addack  a  beople  bound  togeder 
in  a  broderhood  like  that?" 

"  Lion  and  lamb  act,"  said  Fulkerson,  not  well  know 
ing,  after  so  much  champagne,  what  words  he  was 
using. 

No  one  noticed  him,  and  Colonel  Woodburn  said 
coldly  to  Lindau,  "  You  are  talking  paternalism,  sir." 

"  And  you  are  dalking  feutalism !"  retorted  the  old 
man. 

The  colonel  did  not  reply.  A  silence  ensued,  which 
no  one  broke  till  Fulkerson  said :  "  Well,  now,  look 
here.  If  either  one  of  these  millenniums  was  brought 
about,  by  force  of  arms,  or  otherwise,  what  would  be 
come  of  Every  Other  Week?  Who  would  want  March 
for  an  editor  ?  How  would  Beaton  sell  his  pictures  ? 
Who  would  print  Mr.  Kendricks's  little  society  verses 
and  short  stories  ?  What  would  become  of  Conrad  and 
his  good  works  ?"  Those  named  grinned  in  support  of 
Fulkerson's  diversion,  but  Lindau  and  the  colonel  did 
not  speak ;  Dryfoos  looked  down  at  his  plate,  f rowning. 

398 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

A  waiter  came  round  with  cigars,  and  Fulkerson  took 
one.  "  Ah,"  he  said,  as  he  bit  off  the  end,  and  leaned 
over  to  the  emblematic  masterpiece,  where  the  brandy 
was  still  feebly  flickering,  "  I  wonder  if  there's  enough 
natural  gas  left  to  light  my  cigar."  His  effort  put  the 
flame  out  and  knocked  the  derrick  over;  it  broke  in 
fragments  on  the  table.  Fulkerson  cackled  over  the 
ruin :  "  I  wonder  if  all  Moffitt  will  look  that  way  after 
labor  and  capital  have  fought  it  out  together.  I  hope 
this  ain't  ominous  of  anything  personal,  Dryfoos  ?" 

"  I'll  take  the  risk  of  it,"  said  the  old  man,  harshly. 

He  rose  mechanically,  and  Fulkerson  said  to  Fresco- 
baldi's  man,  "  You  can  bring  us  the  coffee  in  the 
library." 

The  talk  did  not  recover  itself  there.  Lindau  would 
not  sit  down;  he  refused  coffee,  and  dismissed  himself 
with  a  haughty  bow  to  the  company;  Colonel  Wood- 
burn  shook  hands  elaborately  all  round,  when  he  had 
smoked  his  cigar;  the  others  followed  him.  It  seemed 
to  March  that  his  own  good-night  from  Dryfoos  was 
dry  and  cold. 


VII 


MARCH  met  Fulkerson  on  the  steps  of  the  office 
next  morning,  when  he  arrived  rather  later  than  his 
wont.  Fulkerson  did  not  show  any  of  the  signs  of 
suffering  from  the  last  night's  pleasure  which  painted 
themselves  in  March's  face.  He  flirted  his  hand  gayly 
in  the  air,  and  said,  "  How's  your  poor  head  ?"  and 
broke  into  a  knowing  laugh.  "  You  don't  seem  to  have 
got  up  with  the  lark  this  morning.  The  old  gentle 
man  is  in  there  with  Conrad,  as  bright  as  a  biscuit; 
he's  beat  you  down.  Well,  we  did  have  a  good  time, 
didn't  we?  And  old  Lindau  and  the  colonel,  didn't 
they  have  a  good  time  ?  I  don't  suppose  they  ever  had 
a  chance  before  to  give  their  theories  quite  so  much 
air.  Oh,  my!  how  they  did  ride  over  us!  I'm  just 
going  down  to  see  Beaton  about  the  cover  of  the  Chris- 
mas  number.  I  think  we  ought  to  try  it  in  three  or 
four  colors,  if  we  are  going  to  observe  the  day  at  all." 
He  was  off  before  March  could  pull  himself  together 
to  ask  what  Dryfoos  wanted  at  the  office  at  that  hour 
of  the  morning;  he  always  came  in  the  afternoon  on 
his  way  up-town. 

The  fact  of  his  presence  renewed  the  sinister  mis 
givings  with  which  March  had  parted  from  him  the 
night  before,  but  Fulkerson's  cheerfulness  seemed  to 
gainsay  them ;  afterward  March  did  not  know  whether 
to  attribute  this  mood  to  the  slipperiness  that  he  was 
aware  of  at  times  in  Fulkerson,  or  to  a  cynical  anruse- 

400 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

ment  he  might  have  felt  at  leaving  him  alone  to  the 
old  man,  who  mounted  to  his  room  shortly  after  March 
had  reached  it. 

A  sort  of  dumb  anger  showed  itself  in  his  face;  his 
jaw  was  set  so  firmly  that  he  did  not  seem  ahle  at  once 
to  open  it.  He  asked,  without  the  ceremonies  of  greet 
ing,  "  What  does  that  one-armed  Dutchman  do  on  this 
book  ?" 

"  What  does  he  do  ?"  March  echoed,  as  people  are 
apt  to  do  with  a  question  that  is  mandatory  and  of 
fensive. 

"  Yes,  sir,  what  does  he  do  ?    Does  he  write  for  it  ?" 

"  I  suppose  you  mean  Lindau,"  said  March.  He 
saw  no  reason  for  refusing  to  answer  Dryfoos's  de 
mand,  and  he  decided  to  ignore  its  terms.  "  No,  he 
doesn't  write  for  it  in  the  usual  way.  He  translates 
for  it;  he  examines  the  foreign  magazines,  and  draws 
my  attention  to  anything  he  thinks  of  interest.  But 
I  told  you  about  this  before — " 

"  I  know  what  you  told  me,  well  enough.  And  I 
know  what  he  is.  He  is  a  red-mouthed  labor  agitator. 
He's  one  of  those  foreigners  that  come  here  from  places 
where  they've  never  had  a  decent  meal's  victuals  in 
their  lives,  and  as  soon  as  they  get  their  stomachs  full, 
they  begin  to  make  trouble  between  our  people  and 
their  hands.  There's  where  the  strikes  come  from,  and 
the  unions  and  the  secret  societies.  They  come  here 
and  break  our  Sabbath,  and  teach  their  atheism.  They 
ought  to  be  hung!  Let  'em  go  back  if  they  don't  like 
it  over  here.  They  want  to  ruin  the  country." 

March  could  not  help  smiling  a  little  at  the  words, 
which  came  fast  enough  now  in  the  hoarse  staccato  of 
Dryfoos's  passion.  "  I  don't  know  whom  you  mean 
by  they,  generally  speaking;  but  I  had  the  impression 
that  poor  old  Lindau  had  once  done  his  best  to  save  the 

401 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

country.  I  don't  always  like  his  way  of  talking,  but 
I  know  that  he  is  one  of  the  truest  and  kindest  souls  in 
the  world ;  and  he  is  no  more  an  atheist  than  I  am.  He 
is  my  friend,  and  I  can't  allow  him  to  be  misunder 
stood." 

"  I  don't  care  what  he  is,"  Dryfoos  broke  out,  "  I 
won't  have  him  round.  He  can't  have  any  more  work 
from  this  office.  I  want  you  to  stop  it.  I  want  you 
to  turn  him  off." 

March  was  standing  at  his  desk,  as  he  had  risen  to 
receive  Dryfoos  when  he  entered.  He  now  sat  down, 
and  began  to  open  his  letters. 

"  Do  you  hear  ?"  the  old  man  roared  at  him.  "  I 
want  you  to  turn  him  off." 

"  Excuse  me,  Mr.  Dryfoos,"  said  March,  succeed 
ing  in  an  effort  to  speak  calmly,  "  I  don't  know  you, 
in  such  a  matter  as  this.  My  arrangements  as  editor 
of  Every  Other  Week  were  made  with  Mr.  Fulkerson. 
I  have  always  listened  to  any  suggestion  he  has  had  to 
make." 

"  I  don't  care  for  Mr.  Fulkerson !  He  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it,"  retorted  Dryfoos ;  but  he  seemed  a  little 
daunted  by  March's  position. 

"  He  has  everything  to  do  with  it  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned,"  March  answered,  with  a  steadiness  that  he 
did  not  feel.  "  I  know  that  you  are  the  owner  of  the 
periodical,  but  I  can't  receive  any  suggestion  from  you, 
for  the  reason  that  I  have  given.  Nobody  but  Mr. 
Fulkerson  has  any  right  to  talk  with  me  about  its 
management." 

Dryfoos  glared  at  him  for  a  moment,  and  demanded^ 
threateningly :  "  Then  you  say  you  won't  turn  that  old 
loafer  off  ?    You  say  that  I  have  got  to  keep  on  paying 
my  money  out  to  buy  beer  for  a  man  that  would  cut 

my  throat  if  he  got  the  chance  ?" 

402 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  say  nothing  at  all,  Mr.  Dryfoos,"  March  an 
swered.  The  blood  came  into  his  face,  and  he  added: 
"  But  I  will  say  that  if  you  speak  again  of  Mr.  Lindau 
in  those  terms,  one  of  us  must  leave  this  room.  I  will 
not  hear  you." 

Dryfoos  looked  at  him  with  astonishment;  then  he 
struck  his  hat  down  on  his  head,  and  stamped  out  of 
the  room  and  down  the  stairs;  and  a  vague  pity  came 
into  March's  heart  that  was  not  altogether  for  himself. 
He  might  be  the  greater  sufferer  in  the  end,  but  he 
was  sorry  to  have  got  the  better  of  that  old  man  for 
the  moment ;  and  he  felt  ashamed  of  the  anger  into 
which  Dryfoos's  anger  had  surprised  him.  He  knew 
he  could  not  say  too  much  in  defence  of  Lindau's  gen 
erosity  and  unselfishness,  and  he  had  not  attempted  to 
defend  him  as  a  political  economist.  He  could  not  have 
taken  any  ground  in  relation  to  Dryfoos  but  that  which 
he  held,  and  he  felt  satisfied  that  he  was  right  in  re 
fusing  to  receive  instructions  or  commands  from  him. 
Yet  somehow  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the  whole  affair, 
and  not  merely  because  his  present  triumph  threatened 
his  final  advantage,  but  because  he  felt  that  in  his  heat 
he  had  hardly  done  justice  to  Dryfoos's  rights  in  the 
matter;  it  did  not  quite  console  him  to  reflect  that 
Dryfoos  had  himself  made  it  impossible.  He  was 
tempted  to  go  home  and  tell  his  wife  what  had  hap 
pened,  and  begin  his  preparations  for  the  future  at 
once.  But  he  resisted  this  weakness  and  kept  me 
chanically  about  his  work,  opening  the  letters  and  the 
manuscripts  before  him  with  that  curious  double  action 
of  the  mind  common  in  men  of  vivid  imaginations.  It 
was  a  relief  when  Conrad  Dryfoos,  having  apparently 
waited  to  make  sure  that  his  father  would  not  return, 
came  up  from  the  counting  -  room  and  looked  in  on 
March  with  a  troubled  face. 
27  403 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

"  Mr.  March/7  he  began,  "  I  hope  father  hasn't  been 
saying  anything  to  you  that  you  can't  overlook.  I 
know  he  was  very  much  excited,  and  when  he  is  ex 
cited  he  is  apt  to  say  things  that  he  is  sorry  for." 

The  apologetic  attitude  taken  for  Dryfoos,  so  differ 
ent  from  any  attitude  the  peremptory  old  man  would 
have  conceivably  taken  for  himself,  made  March  smile. 
"  Oh  no.  I  fancy  the  boot  is  on  the  other  leg.  I  sus 
pect  I've  said  some  things  your  father  can't  overlook, 
Conrad."  He  called  the  young  man  by  his  Christian 
name  partly  to  distinguish  him  from  his  father,  partly 
from  the  infection  of  Fulkerson's  habit,  and  partly 
from  a  kindness  for  him  that  seemed  naturally  to  ex 
press  itself  in  that  way. 

"  I  know  he  didn't  sleep  last  night,  after  you  all 
went  away,"  Conrad  pursued,  "  and  of  course  that 
made  him  more  irritable ;  and  he  was  tried  a  good  deal 
by  some  of  the  things  that  Mr.  Lindau  said." 

"  I  was  tried  a  good  deal  myself,"  said  March. 
"  Lindau  ought  never  to  have  been  there." 

"  No."     Conrad  seemed  only  partially  to  assent. 

"  I  told  Mr.  Fulkerson  so.  I  warned  him  that 
Lindau  would  be  apt  to  break  out  in  some  way.  It 
wasn't  just  to  him,  and  it  wasn't  just  to  your  father, 
to  ask  him." 

"  Mr.  Fulkerson  had  a  good  motive,"  Conrad  gently 
urged.  "  He  did  it  because  he  hurt  his  feelings  that 
day  about  the  pension." 

"  Yes,  but  it  was  a  mistake.  He  knew  that  Lindau 
was  inflexible  about  his  principles,  as  he  calls  them, 
and  that  one  of  his  first  principles  is  to  denounce  the 
rich  in  season  and  out  of  season.  I  don't  remember 
just  what  he  said  last  night;  and  I  really  thought  I'd 
kept  him  from  breaking  out  in  the  most  offensive  way. 
But  your  father  seems  very  much  incensed." 

404 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  said  Conrad. 

"  Of  course,  I  don't  agree  with  Lindau.  I  think 
there  are  as  many  good,  kind,  just  people  among  the 
rich  as  there  are  among  the  poor,  and  that  they  are 
as  generous  and  helpful.  But  Lindau  has  got  hold  of 
one  of  those  partial  truths  that  hurt  worse  than  the 
whole  truth,  and — " 

"  Partial  truth !"  the  young  man  interrupted. 
u  Didn't  the  Saviour  himself  say,  '  How  hardly  shall 
they  that  have  riches  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God '  ?" 

"  Why,  bless  my  soul !"  cried  March.  "  Do  you 
agree  with  Lindau  ?" 

"•'  I  agree  with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  said  the 
young  man,  solemnly,  and  a  strange  light  of  fanati 
cism,  of  exaltation,  came  into  his  wide  blue  eyes. 
"  And  I  believe  He  meant  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
upon  this  earth,  as  well  as  in  the  skies." 

March  threw  himself  back  in  his  chair  and  looked 
at  him  with  a  kind  of  stupefaction,  in  which  his  eye 
wandered  to  the  doorway,  where  he  saw  Fulkerson 
standing,  it  seemed  to  him  a  long  time,  before  he  heard 
him  saying :  "  Hello,  hello !  What's  the  row  ?  Conrad 
pitching  into  you  on  old  Lindau's  account,  too  ?" 

The  young  man  turned,  and,  after  a  glance  at  Ful- 
kerson's  light,  smiling  face,  went  out,  as  if  in  his  pres 
ent  mood  he  could  not  bear  the  contact  of  that  persiflant 
spirit. 

March  felt  himself  getting  provisionally  very  angry 
again.  "  Excuse  me,  Fulkerson,  but  did  you  know 
when  you  went  out  what  Mr.  Dryfoos  wanted  to  see 
me  for?" 

"  Well,  no,  I  didn't  exactly,"  said  Fulkerson,  taking 
his  usual  seat  on  a  chair  and  looking  over  the  back  of 
it  at  March.  "  I  saw  he  was  on  his  ear  about  some 
thing,  and  I  thought  I'd  better  not  monkey  with  him 

405 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FOBTUNES 

much.  I  supposed  he  was  going  to  bring  you  to  book 
about  old  Lindau,  somehow."  Fulkerson  broke  into  a 
laugh. 

March  remained  serious.  "  Mr.  Dryfoos,"  he  said, 
willing  to  let  the  simple  statement  have  its  own  weight 
with  Fulkerson,  and  nothing  more,  "  came  in  here  and 
ordered  me  to  discharge  Lindau  from  his  employment 
on  the  magazine — to  turn  him.  off,  as  he  put  it." 

"  Did  he  ?"  asked  Fulkerson,  with  unbroken  cheer 
fulness.  "  The  old  man  is  business,  every  time.  Well, 
I  suppose  you  can  easily  get  somebody  else  to  do  Lin- 
daii's  work  for  you.  This  town  is  just  running  over 
with  half-starved  linguists.  What  did  you  say  ?" 

"What  did  I  say?"  March  echoed.  "Look  here, 
Fulkerson ;  you  may  regard  this  as  a  joke,  but  I  don't. 
I'm  not  used  to  being  spoken  to  as  if  I  were  the  fore 
man  of  a  shop,  and  told  to  discharge  a  sensitive  and 
cultivated  man  like  Lindau,  as  if  he  were  a  drunken 
mechanic ;  and  if  that's  your  idea  of  me — " 

"  Oh,  hello,  now,  March !  You  mustn't  mind  the 
old  man's  way.  lie  don't  mean  anything  by  it — he 
don't  Icnow  any  better,  if  you  come  to  that." 

"  Then  /  know  better,"  said  March.  "  I  refused  to 
receive  any  instructions  from  Mr.  Dryfoos,  whom  I 
don't  know  in  my  relations  with  Every  Other  Week,, 
and  I  referred  him  to  you." 

"You  did?"  Fulkerson  whistled.  "He  owns  the 
thing !" 

"  I  don't  care  who  owns  the  thing,"  said  March. 
"  My  negotiations  were  with  you  alone  from  the  begin 
ning,  and  I  leave  this  matter  with  you.  What  do  you 
wish  done  about  Lindau  ?" 

"  Oh,  better  let  the  old  fool  drop,"  said  Fulkerson. 
"  He'll  light  on  his  feet  somehow,  and  it  will  save  a 
lot  of  rumpus." 

400 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  And  if  I  decline  to  let  him  drop  ?" 

"  Oh,  come,  now,  March ;  don't  do  that/7  Fulkerson 
began. 

"  If  I  decline  to  let  him  drop,"  March  repeated, 
"  what  will  yon  do  ?" 

"  I'll  be  dogged  if  I  know  what  I'll  do,"  said  Ful 
kerson.  "  I  hope  you  won't  take  that  stand.  If  the 
old  man  went  so  far  as  to  speak  to  you  about  it,  his 
mind  is  made  up,  and  we  might  as  well  knock  under 
first  as  last." 

"  And  do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  would  not  stand 
by  me  in  what  I  considered  my  duty — in  a  matter  of 
principle  ?" 

"  Why,  of  course,  March,"  said  Fulkerson,  coaxing- 
ly,  "  I  mean  to  do  the  right  thing.  But  Dryfoos  owns 
the  magazine — 

"  He  doesn't  own  me"  said  March,  rising.  "  He 
has  made  the  little  mistake  of  speaking  to  me  as  if 
he  did ;  and  when  "  —March  put  on  his  hat  and  took 
his  overcoat  down  from  its  nail — "  when  you  bring  me 
his  apologies,  or  come  to  say  that,  having  failed  to  make 
him  understand  they  were  necessary,  you  are  prepared 
to  stand  by  me,  I  will  come  back  to  this  desk.  Other 
wise  my  resignation  is  at  your  service." 

He  started  toward  the  door,  and  Fulkerson  inter 
cepted  him.  "  Ah,  now,  look  here,  March !  Don't  do 
that!  Hang  it  all,  don't  you  see  where  it  leaves  me? 
Now,  you  just  sit  down  a  minute  and  talk  it  over.  I 
can  make  you  see — I  can  show  you —  Why,  confound 
the  old  Dutch  beer-buzzer!  Twenty  of  him  wouldn't 
be  worth  the  trouble  he's  makin'.  Let  him  go,  and  the 
old  man  '11  come  round  in  time." 

"  I  don't  think  we've  understood  each  other  exactly, 
Mr.  Fulkerson,"  said  March,  very  haughtily.  "  Per 
haps  we  never  can ;  but  I'll  leave  you  to  think  it  out," 

407 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

He  pushed  on,  and  Eulkerson  stood  aside  to  let  him 
pass,  with  a  dazed  look  and  a  mechanical  movement. 
There  was  something  comic  in  his  rueful  bewilderment 
to  March,  who  was  tempted  to  smile,  but  he  said  to 
himself  that  he  had  as  much  reason  to  be  unhappy  as 
Fulkerson,  and  he  did  not  smile.  His  indignation  kept 
him  hot  in  his  purpose  to  suffer  any  consequence  rather 
submit  to  the  dictation  of  a  man  like  Dryfoos ;  he 
felt  keenly  the  degradation  of  his  connection  with  him, 
/  and  all  his  resentment  of  Fulkerson's  original  uncandor 
/  returned;  at  the  same  time  his  heart  ached  with  fore 
boding.  It  was  not  merely  the  work  in  which  he  had 
constantly  grown  happier  that  he  saw  taken  from  him ; 
but  he  felt  the  misery  of  the  man  who  stakes  the  se 
curity  and  plenty  and  peace  of  home  upon  some  cast, 
and  knows  that  losing  will  sweep  from  him  most  that 
most  men  find  sweet  and  pleasant  in  life.  He  faced  the 
fact,  which  no  good  man  can  front  without  terror,  that 
he  was  risking  the  support  of  his  family,  and  for  a  point 
of  pride,  of  honor,  which  perhaps  he  had  no  right  to 
consider  in  view  of  the  possible  adversity.  He  realized, 
as  every  hireling  must,  no  matter  how  skilfully  or 
gracefully  the  tie  is  contrived  for  his  wearing,  that 
he  belongs  to  another,  whose  will  is  his  law.  His  in 
dignation  was  shot  with  abject  impulses  to  go  back 
and  tell  Fulkerson  that  it  was  all  right,  and  that  he 
gave  up.  To  end  the  anguish  of  his  struggle  he  quick 
ened  his  steps,  so  that  he  found  he  was  reaching  home 
almost  at  a  run. 


VIII 

HE  must  have  made  more  clatter  than  he  supposed 
with  his  key  at  the  apartment  door,  for  his  wife  had 
come  to  let  him  in  when  he  flung  it  open.  "  Why, 
Basil,"  she  said,  "  what's  brought  you  back  ?  Are  you 
sick  ?  You're  all  pale.  Well,  no  wonder !  This  is  the 
last  of  Mr.  Fulkerson's  dinners  you  shall  go  to.  You're 
not  strong  enough  for  it,  and  your  stomach  will  be  all 
out  of  order  for  a  week.  How  hot  you  are !  and  in  a 
drip  of  perspiration !  Now  you'll  be  sick."  She  took 
his  hat  away,  which  hung  dangling  in  his  hand, 
and  pushed  him  into  a  chair  with  tender  impatience. 
"  What  is  the  matter  ?  Has  anything  happened  2" 

"  Everything  has  happened,"  he  said,  getting  his 
voice  after  one  or  two  husky  endeavors  for  it;  and 
then  he  poured  out  a  confused  and  huddled  statement 
of  the  case,  from  which  she  only  got  at  the  situation 
by  prolonged  cross-questioning. 

At  the  end  she  said,  "  I  knew  Lindau  would  get  you 
into  trouble." 

This  cut  March  to  the  heart.  "  Isabel !"  he  cried, 
reproachfully. 

"  Oh,  I  know,"  she  retorted,  and  the  tears  began 
to  come.  "  I  don't  wonder  you  didn't  want  to  say 
much  to  me  about  that  dinner  at  breakfast.  I  noticed 
it;  but  I  thought  you  were  just  dull,  and  so  I  didn't 
insist.  I  wish  I  had,  now.  If  you  had  told  me  what 
Lindau  had  said,  I  should  have  known  what  would 
have  come  of  it,  and  I  could  have  advised  you — " 

400 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Would  you  have  advised  me,"  March  demanded, 
curiously,  "  to  submit  to  bullying  like  that,  and  meekly 
consent  to  commit  an  act  of  cruelty  against  a  man  who 
had  once  been  such  a  friend  to  me  ?" 

"  It  was  an  unlucky  day  when  you  met  him.  I  sup 
pose  we  shall  have  to  go.  And  just  when  we  had  got 
used  to  New  York,  and  begun  to  like  it.  I  don't  know 
where  we  shall  go  now;  Boston  isn't  like  home  any 
more;  and  we  couldn't  live  on  two  thousand  there;  I 
should  be  ashamed  to  try.  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  where 
we  can  live  on  it.  I  suppose  in  some  country  village, 
where  there  are  no  schools,  or  anything  for  the  chil 
dren.  I  don't  know  what  they'll  say  when  we  tell 
them,  poor  things." 

Every  word  was  a  stab  in  March's  heart,  so  weakly 
tender  to  his  own;  his  wife's  tears,  after  so  much  ex 
perience  of  the  comparative  lightness  of  the  griefs 
that  weep  themselves  out  in  women,  always  seemed 
wrung  from  his  own  soul;  if  his  children  suffered  in 
the  least  through  him,  he  felt  like  a  murderer.  It  was 
far  worse  than  he  could  have  imagined,  the  way  his 
wife  took  the  affair,  though  he  had  imagined  certain 
words,  or  perhaps  only  looks,  from  her  that  were  bad 
enough.  He  had  allowed  for  trouble,  but  trouble  on 
his  account:  a  sympathy  that  might  burden  and  em 
barrass  him;  but  he  had  not  dreamed  of  this  merely 
domestic,  this  petty,  this  sordid  view  of  their  potential 
calamity,  which  left  him  wholly  out  of  the  question, 
and  embraced  only  what  was  most  crushing  and  deso 
lating  in  the  prospect.  He  could  not  bear  it.  He 
caught  up  his  hat  again,  and,  with  some  hope  that  his 
wife  would  try  to  keep  him,  rushed  out  of  the  house. 
He  wandered  aimlessly  about,  thinking  the  same  ex 
hausting  thoughts  over  and  over,  till  he  found  himself 
horribly  hungry;  then  he  went  into  a  restaurant  for  his 

410 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

lunch,  and  when  he  paid  he  tried  to  imagine  how  he 
should  feel  if  that  were  really  his  last  dollar. 

He  went  home  toward  the  middle  of  the  afternoon, 
basely  hoping  that  Fulkerson  had  sent  him  some  con 
ciliatory  message,  or  perhaps  was  waiting  there  for  him 
to  talk  it  over;  March  was  quite  willing  to  talk  it  over 
now.  But  it  was  his  wife  who  again  met  him  at  the 
.  door,  though  it  seemed  another  woman  than  the  one 
he  had  left  weeping  in  the  morning. 

"  I  told  the  children/'  she  said,  in  smiling  explana 
tion  of  his  absence  from  lunch,  "  that  perhaps  you 
were  detained  by  business.  I  didn't  know  but  you  had 
gone  back  to  the  office." 

"  Did  you  think  I  would  go  back  there,  Isabel  ?" 
asked  March,  with  a  haggard  look.  "  Well,  if  you  say 
so,  I  will  go  back,  and  do  what  Dryfoos  ordered  me  to 
do.  I'm  sufficiently  cowed  between  him  and  you,  I 
can  assure  you." 

"  Nonsense,"  she  said.  "  I  approve  of  everything 
you  did.  But  sit  down,  now,  and  don't  keep  walking 
that  way,  and  let  me  see  if  I  understand  it  perfectly. 
Of  course,  I  had  to  have  my  say  out." 

She  made  him  go  all  over  his  talk  with  Dryfoos 
again,  and  report  his  own  language  precisely.  From 
time  to  time,  as  she  got  his  points,  she  said,  "  That  was 
splendid,"  "Good  enough  for  him!"  and  "Oh,  I'm 
so  glad  you  said  that  to  him!"  At  the  end  she  said: 
"  Well,  now,  let's  look  at  it  from  his  point  of  view. 
Let's  be  perfectly  just  to  him  before  we  take  another 
step  forward." 

"  Or  backward,"  March  suggested,  ruefully.  "  The 
case  is  simply  this:  he  owns  the  magazine." 

"  Of  course." 

"  And  he  has  a  right  to  expect  that  I  will  consider 
his  pecuniary  interests — 

411 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh,  those  detestable  pecuniary  interests !  Don't 
you  wish  there  wasn't  any  money  in  the  world?" 

"  Yes ;  or  else  that  there  was  a  great  deal  more  of 
it.  And  I  was  perfectly  willing  to  do  that.  I  have 
always  kept  that  in  mind  as  one  of  my  duties  to  him, 
ever  since  I  understood  what  his  relation  to  the  maga 
zine  was." 

"  Yes,  I  can  bear  witness  to  that  in  any  court  of 
justice.  You've  done  it  a  great  deal  more  than  I  could, 
Basil.  And  it  was  just  the  same  way  with  those  hor 
rible  insurance  people." 

"  I  know,"  March  went  on,  trying  to  be  proof  against 
her  flatteries,  or  at  least  to  look  as  if  he  did  not  deserve 
praise ;  "  I  know  that  what  Lindau  said  was  offensive 
to  him,  and  I  can  understand  how  he  felt  that  he  had 
a  right  to  punish  it.  All  I  say  is  that  he  had  no  right 
to  punish  it  through  me." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  March,  askingly. 

"  If  it  had  been  a  question  of  making  Every  Other 
Week  the  vehicle  of  Lindau's  peculiar  opinions — 
though  they're  not  so  very  peculiar;  he  might  have 
got  the  most  of  them  out  of  Ruskin — I  shouldn't  have 
had  any  ground  to  stand  on,  or  at  least  then  I  should 
have  had  to  ask  myself  whether  his  opinions  would  be 
injurious  to  the  magazine  or  not." 

"  I  don't  see,"  Mrs.  March  interpolated,  "  how  they 
could  hurt  it  much  worse  than  Colonel  Woodburn's 
article  crying  up  slavery." 

"  Well,"  said  March,  impartially,  "  we  could  print 
a  dozen  articles  praising  the  slavery  it's  impossible  to 
have  back,  and  it  wouldn't  hurt  us.  But  if  we  printed 
one  paper  against  the  slavery  which  Lindau  claims 
still  exists,  some  people  would  call  us  bad  names,  and 
the  counting-room  would  begin  to  feel  it.  But  that 
isn't  the  point.  Lindau's  connection  with  Every  Oilier 

412 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Week  is  almost  purely  mechanical ;  he's  merely  a  trans 
lator  of  such  stories  and  sketches  as  he  first  submits  to 
me,  and  it  isn't  at  all  a  question  of  his  opinions  hurting 
us,  but  of  my  becoming  an  agent  to  punish  him  for  his 
opinions.  That  is  what  I  wouldn't  do;  that's  what  I 
never  will  do." 

"  If  you  did,"  said  his  wife,  "  I  should  perfectly 
despise  you.  I  didn't  understand  how  it  was  before. 
I  thought  you  were  just  holding  out  against  Dryfoos 
because  he  took  a  dictatorial  tone  with  you,  and  because 
you  wouldn't  recognize  his  authority.  But  now  I'm 
with  you,  Basil,  every  time,  as  that  horrid  little  Ful- 
kerson  says.  But  who  would  ever  have  supposed  he 
would  be  so  base  as  to  side  against  you  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  March,  thoughtfully,  "that 
we  had  a  right  to  expect  anything  else.  ^"Piilkprgrm^ 
standards  are  low:  they're  merely  businessstan^arda. 
and  the  good  that's  in  him  is  TncfdehtaTlmd  some 
thing  quite  apart  from  his  morals  and  methods.  lie's 
naturally  a  generous  and  right-minded  creature,  but 
life  has  taught  him  to  truckle  and  trick,  like  the  rest 
of  us." 

"  It  hasn't  taught  you  that,  Basil." 

"Don't  be  so  sure.  Perhaps  it's  only  that  I'm  a 
poor  scholar.  But  I  don't  know,  really,  that  I  despise 
Fulkerson  so  much  for  his  course  this  morning  as  for 
his  gross  and  fulsome  flatteries  of  Dryfoos  last  night. 
I  could  hardly  stomach  it." 

His  wife  made  him  tell  her  what  they  were,  and, 
then  she  said,  "  Yes,  that  was  loathsome;  I  couldn'r 
have  believed  it  of  Mr.  Fulkerson." 

"  Perhaps  he  only  did  it  to  keep  the  talk  going,  and 
to  give  the  old  man  a  chance  to  say  something,"  March 
leniently  suggested.  "  It  was  a  worse  effect  because 
he  didn't  or  couldn't  follow  up  Fulker son's  lead." 

413 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  It  was  loathsome,  all  the  same,"  his  wife  insisted. 
"  It's  the  end  of  Mr.  Fulkerson,  as  far  as  I'm  con 
cerned." 

"  I  didn't  tell  you  before,"  March  resumed,  after  a 
moment,  "  of  my  little  interview  with  Conrad  Dryfoos 
after  his  father  left,"  and  now  he  went  on  to  repeat 
what  had  passed  between  him  and  the  young  man. 

"  I  suspect  that  he  and  his  father  had  been  having 
some  words  before  the  old  man  came  up  to  talk  with 
me,  and  that  it  was  that  made  him  so  furious." 

"  Yes,  but  what  a  strange  position  for  the  son  of 
such  a  man  to  take!  Do  you  suppose  he  says  such 
things  to  his  father  ?" 

"  I  don't  know ;  but  I  suspect  that  in  his  meek  way 
Conrad  would  say  what  he  believed  to  anybody.  I 
suppose  we  must  regard  him  as  a  kind  of  crank." 

"  Poor  young  fellow !  He  always  makes  me  feel 
sad,  somehow.  He  has  such  a  pathetic  face.  I 
don't  believe  I  ever  saw  him  look  quite  happy,  ex 
cept  that  night  at  Mrs.  Horn's,  when  he  was  talking 
writh  Miss  Vance;  and  then  he  made  me  feel  sadder 
than  ever." 

"  I  don't  envy  him  the  life  he  leads  at  home,  with 
those  convictions  of  his.  I  don't  see  why  it  wouldn't 
be  as  tolerable  there  for  old  Lindau  himself." 

"  Well,  now,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  let  us  put  them 
all  out  of  our  minds  and  see  what  we  are  going  to  do 
ourselves." 

They  began  to  consider  their  ways  and  means,  and 
how  and  where  they  should  live,  in  view  of  March's 
severance  of  his  relations  with  Every  Oilier  Week. 
They  had  not  saved  anything  from  the  first  year's 
salary;  they  had  only  prepared  to  save;  and  they  had 
nothing  solid  but  their  two  thousand  to  count  upon. 
But  they  built  a  future  in  which  they  easily  lived  on 

414 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

that  and  on  what  March  earned  with  his  pen.  He  be 
came  a  free  lance,  and  fought  in  whatever  cause  he 
thought  just;  he  had  no  ties,  no  chains.  They  went 
back  to  Boston  with  the  heroic  will  to  do  what  was  most 
distasteful;  they  would  have  returned  to  their  own 
house  if  they  had  not  rented  it  again;  but,  any  rate, 
Mrs.  March  helped  out  by  taking  boarders,  or  per 
haps  only  letting  rooms  to  lodgers.  They  had  some 
hard  struggles,  but  they  succeeded. 

"The.  great  thing/'  she  said,  "  is  to  be  right.  I'm 
ten  times  as  happy  as  if  you  had  come  home  and  told 
me  that  you  had  consented  to  do  what  Dryfoos  asked 
and  he  had  doubled  your  salary." 

"  I  don't  think  that  would  have  happened  in  any 
event,"  said  March,  dryly. 

"  Well,  no  matter.     I  just  used  it  for  an  example." 

They  both  experienced  a  buoyant  relief,  such  as 
seems  to  come  to  people  who  begin  life  anew  on  what 
ever  terms.  "  I  hope  we  are  young  enough  yet,  Basil," 
she  said,  and  she  would  not  have  it  when  he  said  they 
had  once  been  younger. 

They  heard  the  children's  knock  on  the  door;  they 
knocked  when  they  came  home  from  school  so  that  their 
mother  might  let  them  in.  "  Shall  we  tell  them  at 
once  ?"  she  asked,  and  ran  to  open  for  them  before 
March  could  answer. 

They  were  not  alone.  Fulkerson,  smiling  from  ear 
to  ear,  was  with  them.  "  Is  March  in  ?"  he  asked. 

"  Mr.  March  is  at  home,  yes,"  she  said  very  haughti 
ly.  "  He's  in  his  study,"  and  she  led  the  way  there, 
while  the  children  went  to  their  rooms. 

"  Well,  March,"  Fulkerson  called  out  at  sight  of 
him,  "  it's  all  right !  The  old  man  has  come  down." 

"  I  suppose  if  you  gentlemen  are  going  to  talk  busi 
ness — "  Mrs.  March  began. 

415 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Oh,  we  don't  want  you  to  go  away,"  said  Fulker- 
son.  "  I  reckon  March  has  told  you,  anyway." 

"Yes,  I've  told  her,"  said  March.  "Don't  go, 
Isabel.  What  do  you  mean,  Fulkerson  ?" 

"  He's  just  gone  on  up  home,  and  he  sent  me  round 
with  his  apologies.  He  sees  now  that  he  had  no  busi 
ness  to  speak  to  you  as  he  did,  and  he  withdraws  every 
thing.  He'd  'a'  come  round  himself  if  I'd  said  so,  but 
I  told  him  I  could  make  it  all  right." 

Fulkerson  looked  so  happy  in  having  the  whole  af 
fair  put  right,  and  the  Marches  knew  him  to  be  so 
kindly  affected  toward  them,  that  they  could  not  refuse 
for  the  moment  to  share  his  mood.  They  felt  them 
selves  slipping  down  from  the  moral  height  which  they 
had  gained,  and  March  made  a  clutch  to  stay  himself 
with  the  question,  "  And  Lindau  ?" 

"  Well,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  he's  going  to  leave  Lindau 
to  me.  You  won't  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  I'll 
let  the  old  fellow  down  easy." 

"  Do  you  mean,"  asked  March,  "  that  Mr.  Dryfoos 
insists  on  his  being  dismissed  ?" 

"  Why,  there  isn't  any  dismissing  about  it,"  Fulker 
son  argued.  "  If  you  don't  send  him  any  more  work, 
he  won't  do  any  more,  that's  all.  Or  if  he  comes  round, 
you  can —  He's  to  be  referred  to  me." 

March  shook  his  head,  and  his  wife,  with  a  sigh,  felt 
herself  plucked  up  from  the  soft  circumstance  of  their 
lives,  which  she  had  sunk  back  into  so  quickly,  and  set 
beside  him  on  that  cold  peak  of  principle  again.  "  It 
won't  do,  Fulkerson.  It's  very  good  of  you,  and  all 
that,  but  it  comes  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end.  I 
could  have  gone  on  without  any  apology  from  Mr.  Dry 
foos;  he  transcended  his  authority,  but  that's  a  minor 
matter.  I  could  have  excused  it  to  his  ignorance  of  life 

among  gentlemen ;  but  I  can't  consent  to  Lindau's  dis- 

416 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

missal — it  comes  to  that,  whether  you  do  it  or  I  do 
it,  and  whether  it's  a  positive  or  a  negative  thing — 
because  he  holds  this  opinion  or  that." 

"  But  don't  you  see,"  said  Fulkerson,  "  that  it's  just 
Lindau's  opinions  the  old  man  can't  stand  ?  He  hasn't 
got  anything  against  him  personally.  I  don't  suppose 
there's  anybody  that  appreciates  Lindau  in  some  ways 
more  than  the  old  man  does." 

"  I  understand.  He  wants  to  punish  him  for  his 
opinions.  Well,  I  can't  consent  to  that,  directly  or 
indirectly.  We  don't  print  his  opinions,  and  he  has  a 
perfect  right  to  hold  them,  whether  Mr.  Dryfoos  agrees 
with  them  or  not." 

Mrs.  March  had  judged  it  decorous  for  her  to  say 
nothing,  but  she  now  went  and  sat  down  in  the  chair 
next  her  husband. 

"  Ah,  dog  on  it !"  cried  Fulkerson,  rumpling  his  hair 
with  both  his  hands.  "  What  am  I  to  do  ?  The  old 
man  says  he's  got  to  go." 

"  And  I  don't  consent  to  his  going,"  said  March. 

"  And  you  won't  stay  if  he  goes." 

Fulkerson  rose.  "  Well,  well !  I've  got  to  see  about 
it.  I'm  afraid  the  old  man  won't  stand  it,  March;  I 
am,  indeed.  I  wish  you'd  reconsider.  I — I'd  take  it 
as  a  personal  favor  if  you  would.  It  leaves  me  in  a 
fix.  You  see  I've  got  to  side  with  one  or  the  other." 

March  made  no  reply  to  this,  except  to  say,  "  Yes, 
you  must  stand  by  him,  or  you  must  stand  by  me." 

"  Well,  well !  Hold  on  awhile !  I'll  see  you  in  the 
morning.  Don't  take  any  steps — ' 

"  Oh,  there  are  no  steps  to  take,"  said  March,  with 
a  melancholy  smile.  "  The  steps  are  stopped ;  that's 
all."  He  sank  back  into  his  chair  when  Fulkerson  was 
gone  and  drew  a  long  breath.  "  This  is  pretty  rough. 
I  thought  we  had  got  through  it." 

417 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  !Nb,"  said  his  wife.  "  It  seems  as  if  I  had  to  make 
the  fight  all  over  again." 

"  Well,  it's  a  good  thing  it's  a  holy  war." 

"  I  can't  bear  the  suspense.  Why  didn't  you  tell 
him  outright  you  wouldn't  go  back  on  any  terms?" 

"  I  might  as  well,  and  got  the  glory.  He'll  never 
move  Dryfoos.  I  suppose  we  both  would  like  to  go 
back,  if  we  could." 

"  Oh,  I  suppose  so." 

They  could  not  regain  their  lost  exaltation,  their  lost 
dignity.  At  dinner  Mrs.  March  asked  the  children  how 
they  would  like  to  go  back  to  Boston  to  live. 

"  Why,  we're  not  going,  are  we  3"  asked  Tom,  with 
out  enthusiasm. 

"  I  was  just  wondering  how  you  felt  about  it,  now," 
she  said,  with  an  underlook  at  her  husband. 

"  Well,  if  we  go  back,"  said  Bella,  "  I  want  to  live 
on  the  Back  Bay.  It's  awfully  Micky  at  the  South 
End." 

"  I  suppose  I  should  go  to  Harvard,"  said  Tom, 
"  and  I'd  room  out  at  Cambridge.  It  would  be  easier 
to  get  at  you  on  the  Back  Bay." 

The  parents  smiled  ruefully  at  each  other,  and,  in 
view  of  these  grand  expectations  of  his  children,  March 
resolved  to  go  as  far  as  he  could  in  meeting  Dryfoos's 
wishes.  He  proposed  the  theatre  as  a  distraction  from 
the  anxieties  that  he  knew  were  pressing  equally  on 
his  wife.  "  We  might  go  to  the  '  Old  Homestead,'  " 
he  suggested,  with  a  sad  irony,  which  only  his  wife  felt. 

"  Oh  yes,  let's!"  cried  Bella. 

While  they  were  getting  ready,  some  one  rang,  and 
Bella  went  to  the  door,  and  then  came  to  tell  her  father 
that  it  was  Mr.  Lindau.  "  He  says  he  wants  to  see  you 
just  a  moment.  He's  in  the  parlor,  and  he  won't  sit 

down,  or  anything." 

418 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  What  can  he  want  ?"  groaned  Mrs.  March,  from 
their  common  dismay. 

March  apprehended  a  storm  in  the  old  man's  face. 
But  he  only  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  looking 
very  sad  and  grave.  "  You  are  coing  oudt,"  he  said. 
"  I  won't  geep  you  long.  I  haf  gome  to  pring  pack 
dose  macassines  and  dis  mawney.  I  can't  do  any  more 
voark  for  you;  and  I  can't  geep  the  mawney  you  haf 
baid  me  a'ready.  It  iss  not  hawnest  mawney  —  that 
hass  been  oarned  py  voark;  it  iss  mawney  that  hass 
peen  mate  py  sbeculation,  and  the  obbression  off  lapor, 
and  the  necessity  of  the  boor,  py  a  man —  Here  it  is, 
efery  tollar,  efery  zent.  Dake  it;  I  feel  as  if  dere  vas 
ploodt  on  it." 

"  Why,  Lindau,"  March  began,  but  the  old  man  in 
terrupted  him. 

"  Ton't  dalk  to  me,  Passil !  I  could  not  haf  be- 
lievedt  it  of  you.  When  you  know  how  I  feel  about 
dose  tings,  why  tidn't  you  dell  me  ivJiose  mawney 
you  bay  oudt  to  me  ?  Ach,  I  ton't  plame  you — I  ton't 
rebroach  you.  You  haf  nefer  thought  of  it;  boat  I — 
I  have  thought,  and  I  should  be  cuilty,  I  must  share 
that  man's  cuilt,  if  I  gept  hiss  mawney.  If  you  hat 
toldt  me  at  the  peginning — if  you  hat  peen  frank  with 
me — boat  it  iss  all  righdt ;  you  can  go  on ;  you  ton't  see 
dese  tings  as  I  see  them ;  and  you  haf  cot  a  family, 
and  I  am  a  free  man.  I  voark  to  myself,  and  when  I 
ton't  voark,  I  sdarfe  to  myself.  But  I  geep  my  handts 
glean,  voark  or  sdarfe.  Gif  him  hiss  mawney  pack! 
I  am  sawry  for  him;  I  would  not  hq^art  hiss  feelings, 
boat  I  could  not  pear  to  douch  him,  and  hiss  mawney 
iss  like  boison!" 

March  tried  to  reason  with  Lindau,  to  show  him  the 
folly,  the  injustice,  the  absurdity  of  his  course ;  it  ended 
in  their  both  getting  angry,  and  in  Lindau's  going  away 
28  '  419 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

in  a  whirl  of  German  that  included  Basil  in  the  guilt 
of  the  man  whom  Lindau  called  his  master. 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "  He  is  a  crank,  and 
I  think  you're  well  rid  of  him.  ISTow  you  have  no 
quarrel  with  that  horrid  old  Dryfoos,  and  you  can  keep 
right  on." 

"  Yes,"  said  March,  "  I  wish  it  didn't  make  me  feel 
so  sneaking.  What  a  long  day  it's  been !  It  seems  like 
a  century  since  I  got  up." 

"  Yes,  a  thousand  years.  Is  there  anything  else  left 
to  happen  ?" 

"  I  hope  not.     I'd  like  to  go  to  bed." 

"  Why,  aren't  you  going  to  the  theatre  ?"  wailed 
Bella,  coming  in  upon  her  father's  desperate  ex 
pression. 

"  The  theatre  ?  Oh  yes,  certainly !  I  meant  after 
we  got  home,"  and  March  amused  himself  at  the  puz 
zled  countenance  of  the  child.  "  Come  on !  Is  Tom 
ready?" 


IX 


FTJLKERSON  parted  with  the  Marches  in  such  trouble 
of  mind  that  he  did  not  feel  able  to  meet  that  night 
the  people  whom  he  usually  kept  so  gay  at  Mrs.  Leigh- 
ton's  table.  He  went  to  Maroni's  for  his  dinner,  for 
this  reason  and  for  others  more  obscure.  He  could  not 
expect  to  do  anything  more  with  Dryfoos  at  once;  he 
knew  that  Dryfoos  must  feel  that  he  had  already  made 
an  extreme  concession  to  March,  and  he  believed  that 
if  he  was  to  get  anything  more  from  him  it  must  be 
after  Dryfoos  had  dined.  But  he  was  not  without  the 
hope,  vague  and  indefinite  as  it  might  be,  that  he 
should  find  Lindau  at  Maroni's,  and  perhaps  should 
get  some  concession  from  him,  some  word  of  regret  or 
apology  which  he  could  report  to  Dryfoos,  and  at  least 
make  the  means  of  reopening  the  affair  with  him ;  per 
haps  Lindau,  when  he  knew  how  matters  stood,  would 
back  down  altogether,  and  for  March's  sake  would 
withdraw  from  all  connection  with  Every  Other  Week 
himself,  and  so  leave  everything  serene.  Fulkerson 
felt  capable,  in  his  desperation,  of  delicately  suggest 
ing  such  a  course  to  Lindau,  or  even  of  plainly  ad 
vising  it :  he  did  not  care  for  Lindau  a  great  deal,  and 
he  did  care  a  great  deal  for  the  magazine. 

But  he  did  not  find  Lindau  at  Maroni's;  he  only 
found  Beaton.  He  sat  looking  at  the  doorway  as  Ful 
kerson  entered,  and  Fulkerson  naturally  came  and  took 

a  place  at  his  table.     Something  in  Beaton's  large-eyed 

421 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

solemnity  of  aspect  invited  Fulkerson  to  confidence, 
and  he  said,  as  he  pulled  his  napkin  open  and  strung 
it,  still  a  little  damp  (as  the  scanty,  often-washed  linen 
at  Maroni's  was  apt  to  be),  across  his  knees,  "  I  was 
looking  for  you  this  morning,  to  talk  with  you  about 
the  Christmas  number,  and  I  was  a  good  deal  worked 
up  because  I  couldn't  find  you ;  but  I  guess  I  might 
as  well  have  spared  myself  my  emotions." 

"  Why  ?"  asked  Beaton,  briefly. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  as  there's  going  to  be  any 
Christmas  number." 

"  Why  ?"  Beaton  asked  again. 

"  Row  between  the  financial  angel  and  the  literary 
editor  about  the  chief  translator  and  polyglot  smeller." 

"  Lindau  ?" 

"  Lindau  is  his  name." 

"  What  does  the  literary  editor  expect  after  Lindau's 
expression  of  his  views  last  night?" 

"  I  don't  know  what  he  expected,  but  the  ground  he 
took  with  the  old  man  was  that,  as  Liiidau's  opinions 
didn't  characterize  his  work  on  the  magazine,  he  would 
not  be  made  the  instrument  of  punishing  him  for  them: 
the  old  man  wanted  him  turned  off,  as  he  calls  it." 

"  Seems  to  be  pretty  good  ground,"  said  Beaton,  im 
partially,  while  he  speculated,  with  a  dull  trouble  at 
heart,  on  the  effect  the  row  would  have  on  his  own 
fortunes.  His  late  visit  home  had  made  him  feel  that 
the  claim  of  his  family  upon  him  for  some  repayment 
of  help  given  could  not  be  much  longer  delayed;  with 
his  mother  sick  and  his  father  growing  old,  he  must 
begin  to  do  something  for  them,  but  up  to  this  time  he 
had  spent  his  salary  even  faster  than  he  had  earned 
it.  When  Fulkerson  came  in  he  was  wondering  whether 
he  could  get  him  to  increase  it,  if  he  threatened  to  give 
up  his  work,  and  he  wished  that  he  was  enough  in  love 

422 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  Margaret  Vance,  or  even  Christine  Dryfoos,  to 
marry  her,  only  to  end  in  the  sorrowful  conviction 
that  he  was  really  in  love  with  Alma  Leighton,  who 
had  no  money,  and  who  had  apparently  no  wish  to 
be  married  for  love,  even.  "  And  what  are  you  going 
to  do  about  it?"  he  asked,  listlessly. 

"  Be  dogged  if  I  know  what  I'm  going  to  do  about 
it,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  I've  been  round  all  day,  trying 
to  pick  up  the  pieces  —  row  began  right  after  break 
fast  this  morning — and  one  time  I  thought  I'd  got  the 
thing  all  put  together  again.  I  got  the  old  man  to  say 
that  he  had  spoken  to  March  a  little  too  authoritatively 
about  Lindau;  that,  in  fact,  he  ought  to  have  com 
municated  his  wishes  through  me;  and  that  he  was 
willing  to  have  me  get  rid  of  Lindau,  and  March 
needn't  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  I  thought  that 
wras  pretty  white,  but  March  says  the  apologies  and 
regrets  are  all  well  enough  in  their  way,  but  they  leave 
the  main  question  where  they  found  it." 

"  What  is  the  main  question  ?"  Beaton  asked,  pour 
ing  himself  out  some  Chianti.  As  he  set  the  flask  down 
he  made  the  reflection  that  if  he  would  drink  water 
instead  of  Chianti  he  could  send  his  father  three  dol 
lars  a  week,  on  his  back  debts,  and  he  resolved  to  do  it. 

"  The  main  question,  as  March  looks  at  it,  is  the 
question  of  punishing  Lindau  for  his  private  opinions ; 
he  says  that  if  he  consents  to  my  bouncing  the  old 
fellow  it's  the  same  as  if  he  bounced  him." 

"  It  might  have  that  complexion  in  some  lights," 
said  Beaton.  He  drank  off  his  Chianti,  and  thought 
he  would  have  it  twice  a  week,  or  make  Maroni  keep 
the  half-bottles  over  for  him,  and  send  his  father  two 
dollars.  "  And  what  are  you  going  to  do  now  ?" 

"  That's  what  I  don't  know,"  said  Eulkerson,  rue 
fully.  After  a  moment  he  said,  desperately,  "  Beaton, 

423 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

you've  got  a  pretty  good  head;  why  don't  you  suggest 
something  ?" 

"  Why  don't  you  let  March  go  ?"  Beaton  suggested. 

"  Ah,  I  couldn't,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  I  got  him  to 
break  up  in  Boston  and  come  here ;  I  like  him ;  nobody 
else  could  get  the  hang  of  the  thing  like  he  has;  he's 
— a  friend."  Fulkerson  said  this  with  the  nearest  ap 
proach  he  could  make  to  seriousness,  which  was  a  kind 
of  unhappiness. 

Beaton  shrugged.  "  Oh,  if  you  can  afford  to  have 
ideals,  I  congratulate  you.  They're  too  expensive  for 
me.  Then,  suppose  you  get  rid  of  Dryfoos  ?" 

Fulkerson  laughed  forlornly.  "  Go  on,  Bildad. 
Like  to  sprinkle  a  few  ashes  over  my  boils  ?  Don't 
mind  me/" 

They  both  sat  silent  a  little  while,  and  then  Beaton 
said,  "  I  suppose  you  haven't  seen  Dryfoos  the  second 
time  ?" 

"  ~No.  I  came  in  here  to  gird  up  my  loins  with  a 
little  dinner  before  I  tackled  him.  But  something 
seems  to  be  the  matter  with  Maroni's  cook.  I  don't 
want  anything  to  eat." 

"  The  cooking's  about  as  bad  as  usual,"  said  Beaton. 
After  a  moment  he  added,  ironically,  for  he  found 
Fulkerson's  misery  a  kind  of  relief  from  his  own,  and 
was  willing  to  protract  it  as  long  as  it  was  amusing, 
"  Why  not  try  an  envoy  extraordinary  and  minister 
plenipotentiary  ?" 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  Get  that  other  old  fool  to  go  to  Dryfoos  for  you !" 

"Which  other  old  fool?  The  old  fools  seem  to  be 
as  thick  as  flies." 

"  That  Southern  one." 

"  Colonel  Woodburn »" 

"  Mmmmm." 

424 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  He  did  seem  to  rather  take  to  the  colonel !"  Ful- 
kerson  mused  aloud. 

"  Of  course  he  did.  Woodburn,  with  his  idiotic 
talk  ahout  patriarchal  slavery,  is  the  man  on  horseback 
to  Dryfoos's  muddy  imagination.  He'd  listen  to  him 
abjectly,  and  he'd  do  whatever  Woodburn  told  him  to 
do."  Beaton  smiled  cynically. 

Fulkerson  got  up  and  reached  for  his  coat  and  hat. 
"  You've  struck  it,  old  man."  The  waiter  came  up  to 
help  him  on  with  his  coat ;  .Fulkerson  slipped  a  dollar 
in  his  hand.  "  Never  mind  the  coat ;  you  can  give 
the  rest  of  my  dinner  to  the  poor,  Paolo.  Beaton, 
shake!  You've  saved  my  life,  little  boy,  though  I 
don't  think  you  meant  it."  He  took  Beaton's  hand 
and  solemnly  pressed  it,  and  then  almost  ran  out  of 
the  door. 

They  had  just  reached  coffee  at  Mrs.  Leighton's 
when  he  arrived  and  sat  down  with  them  and  be 
gan  to  put  some  of  the  life  of  his  new  hope  into  them. 
His  appetite  revived,  and,  after  protesting  that  he  would 
not  take  anything  but  coffee,  he  went  back  and  ate 
some  of  the  earlier  courses.  But  with  the  pressure  of 
his  purpose  driving  him  forward,  he  did  not  conceal 
from  Miss  Woodburn,  at  least,  that  he  was  eager  to 
get  her  apart  from  the  rest  for  some  reason.  When 
he  accomplished  this,  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  contrived 
it  all  himself,  but  perhaps  he  had  not  wholly  con 
trived 'it. 

"  I'm  so  glad  to  get  a  chance  to  speak  to  you  alone," 
he  said  at  once;  and  while  she  waited  for  the  next 
word  he  made  a  pause,  and  then  said,  desperately,  "  I 
want  you  to  help  me ;  and  if  you  can't  help  me,  there's 
no  help  for  me." 

"  Mah  goodness,"  she  said,  "  is  the  case  so  bad  as 
that  ?  What  in  the  woald  is  the  trouble  ?" 

425 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Yes,  it's  a  bad  case,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  I  want 
your  father  to  help  me." 

"  Oh,  I  thoat  you  said  me!" 

"  Yes ;  I  want  you  to  help  me  with  your  father.  I 
suppose  I  ought  to  go  to  him  at  once,  but  I'm  a  little 
afraid  of  him." 

"  And  you  awe  not  afraid  of  m-e  ?  I  don't  think 
that's  very  flattering,  Mr.  Fulkerson.  You  ought  to 
think  Ah'm  twahce  as  awful  as  papa." 

"  Oh,  I  do !  You  see,  I'm  quite  paralyzed  before 
you,  and  so  I  don't  feel  anything." 

"  Well,  it's  a  pretty  lahvely  kyand  of  paralysis. 
But — go  on." 

"  I  will — I  will.     If  I  can  only  begin." 

"  Pohaps  Ah  maght  begin  fo'  you." 

"  No,  you  can't.  Lord  knows,  I'd  like  to  let  you. 
Well,  it's  like  this." 

Fulkerson  made  a  clutch  at  his  hair,  and  then,  after 
another  hesitation,  he  abruptly  laid  the  whole  affair 
before  her.  He  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  state  the 
exact  nature  of  the  offence  Lindau  had  given  Dryfoos, 
for  he  doubted  if  she  could  grasp  it,  and  he  was  pro 
fuse  of  his  excuses  for  troubling  her  with  the  matter, 
and  of  wonder  at  himself  for  having  done  so.  In  the 
rapture  of  his  concern  at  having  perhaps  made  a  fool 
of  himself,  he  forgot  why  he  had  told  her;  but  she 
seemed  to  like  having  been  confided  in,  and  she  said, 
"  Well,  Ah  don't  see  what  you  can  do  with  you'  ahdeals 
of  friendship  except  stand  bah  .Mr.  Mawch." 

"  My  ideals  of  friendship  ?    What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  Oh,  don't  you  suppose  we  know  ?  Mr.  Beaton  said 
you  we'  a  pofect  Bahyard  in  friendship,  and  you  would 
sacrifice  anything  to  it." 

"  Is  that  so  ?"  said  Fulkerson,  thinking  how  easily 
he  could  sacrifice  Lindau  in  this  case.  He  had  never 

426 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

supposed  before  that  he  was  chivalrous  in  such  matters, 
but  he  now  began  to  see  it  in  that  light,  and  he  won 
dered  that  he  could  ever  have  entertained  for  a  moment 
the  idea  of  throwing  March  over. 

"  But  Ah  most  say"  Miss  Woodburn  went  on,  "  Ah 
don't  envy  you  you'  next  interview  with  Mr.  Dryfoos. 
Ah  suppose  you'll  have  to  see  him  at  once  aboat  it." 

The  conjecture  recalled  Fulkerson  to  the  object  of 
his  confidences.  "  Ah,  there's  where  your  help  comes 
in.  I've  exhausted  all  the  influence  /  have  with  Dry 
foos—" 

"  Good  gracious,  you  don't  expect  Ah  could  have 
any!" 

They  both  laughed  at  the  comic  dismay  with  which 
she  conveyed  the  preposterous  notion ;  and  Fulkerson 
said,  "  If  I  judged  from  myself,  I  should  expect  you 
to  bring  him  round  instantly." 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  she  said,  with 
mock  meekness. 

"  Not  at  all.  But  it  isn't  Dryfoos  I  want  you  to 
help  me  with;  it's  your  father.  I  want  your  father 
to  interview  Dryfoos  for  me,  and  I — I'm  afraid  to  ask 
him." 

"  Poo'  Mr.  Fulkerson !"  she  said,  and  she  insinuated 
something  through  her  burlesque  compassion  that  lifted 
him  to  the  skies.  He  swore  in  his  heart  that  the  woman 
never  lived  who  was  so  witty,  so  wise,  so  beautiful,  and 
so  good.  "  Come  raght  with  me  this  minute,  if  the 
cyoast's  clea'."  She  went  to  the  door  of  the  dining- 
room  and  looked  in  across  its  gloom  to  the  little  gallery 
where  her  father  sat  beside  a  lamp  reading  his  evening 
paper;  Mrs.  Leighton  could  be  heard  in  colloquy  with 
the  cook  below,  and  Alma  had  gone  to  her  room.  She 
beckoned  Fulkerson  with  the  hand  outstretched  behind 
her,  and  said,  "  Go  and  ask  him." 

427 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Alone !"  lie  palpitated. 

"  Oh,  what  a  cyowahd  !"  she  cried,  and  went  with 
him.  "  Ah  suppose  you'll  want  me  to  tell  him 
aboat  it." 

"  Well,  I  wish  you'd  begin,  Miss  Woodburn,"  he 
said.  "  The  fact  is,  you  know,  I've  been  over  it  so 
much  I'm  kind  of  sick  of  the  thing." 

Miss  Woodburn  advanced  and  put  her  hand  on  her 
father's  shoulder.  "  Look  heah,  papa  !  Mr.  Fulkersoii 
wants  to  ask  you  something,  and  he  wants  me  to  do  it 
fo'  him." 

The  colonel  looked  up  through  his  glasses  with  the 
sort  of  ferocity  elderly  men  sometimes  have  to  put  on 
in  order  to  keep  their  glasses  from  falling  off.  His 
daughter  continued: 

"  He's  got  into  an  awful  difficulty  with  his  edito' 
and  his  proprieto',  and  he  wants  you  to  pacify  them." 

"  I  do  not  know  whethah  I  understand  the  case 
exactly,"  said  the  colonel,  "  but  Mr.  Fulkerson  may 
command  me  to  the  extent  of  my  ability." 

"  You  don't  understand  it  af tah  what  Ah've  said  ?" 
cried  the  girl.  "  Then  Ah  don't  see  but  what  you'll 
have  to  explain  it  you'self,  Mr.  Fulkerson." 

"  Well,  Miss  Woodburn  has  been  so  luminous  about 
it,  colonel,"  said  Fulkerson,  glad  of  the  joking  shape 
she  had  given  the  affair,  "  that  I  can  only  throw  in  a 
little  side-light  here  and  there." 

The  colonel  listened,  as  Fulkerson  went  on,  with 
a  grave  diplomatic  satisfaction.  He  felt  gratified,  hon 
ored,  even,  he  said,  by  Mr.  Fulkerson's  appeal  to  him; 
and  probably  it  gave  him  something  of  the  high  joy 
that  an  affair  of  honor  would  have  brought  him  in  the 
days  when  he  had  arranged  for  meetings  between  gentle 
men.  Next  to  bearing  a  challenge,  this  work  of  com 
posing  a  difficulty  must  have  been  grateful.  But  he 

428 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

gave  no  outward  sign  of  his  satisfaction  in  making  a 
resume  of  the  case  so  as  to  get  the  points  clearly  in  his 
mind. 

"  I  was  afraid,  sir,"  he  said,  with  the  state  due  to 
the  serious  nature  of  the  facts,  "  that  Mr.  Lindau  had 
given  Mr.  Dryfoos  offence  by  some  of  his  questions  at 
the  dinner-table  last  night." 

"  Perfect  red  rag  to  a  bull,"  Fulkerson  put  in ;  and 
then  he  wanted  to  withdraw  his  words  at  the  colonel's 
look  of  displeasure. 

"  I  have  no  reflections  to  make  upon  Mr.  Lindau," 
Colonel  Woodburn  continued,  and  Fulkerson  felt  grate 
ful  to  him  for  going  on ;  "I  do  not  agree  with  Mr. 
Lindau;  I  totally  disagree  with  him  on  sociological 
points ;  but  the  course  of  the  conversation  had  invited 
him  to  the  expression  of  his  convictions,  and  he  had 
a  right  to  express  them,  so  far  as  they  had  no  personal 
bearing." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Fulkerson,  while  Miss  Woodburn 
perched  on  the  arm  of  her  father's  chair. 

"  At  the  same  time,  sir,  I  think  that  if  Mr.  Dryfoos 
felt  a  personal  censure  in  Mr.  Lindau's  questions  con 
cerning  his  suppression  of  the  strike  among  his  work 
men,  he  had  a  right  to  resent  it." 

"  Exactly,"  Fulkerson  assented. 

"  But  it  must  be  evident  to  you,  sir,  that  a  high- 
spirited  gentleman  like  Mr.  March — I  confess  that  my 
feelings  are  with  him  very  warmly  in  the  matter — 
could  not  submit  to  dictation  of  the  nature  you  de 
scribe." 

"  Yes,  I  see,"  said  Fulkerson ;  and,  with  that  strange 
duplex  action  of  the  human  mind,  he  wished  that  it 
was  his  hair,  and  not  her  father's,  that  Miss  Woodburn 
was  poking  apart  with  the  corner  of  her  fan. 

"  Mr.   Lindau,"  the  colonel  concluded,   "  was  right 

429 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FOKTUNES 

from  his  point  of  view,  and  Mr.  Dryfoos  was  equally 
right.  The  position  of  Mr.  March  is  perfectly  cor 
rect—" 

His  daughter  dropped  to  her  feet  from  his  chair- 
arm.  "  Mah  goodness !  If  nobody's  in  the  wrong,  ho' 
awe  you  evah  going  to  get  the  mattah  straight  ?" 

"  Yes,  you  see,"  Fulkerson  added,  "  nobody  can 
give  in." 

"  Pardon  me,"  said  the  colonel,  "  the  case  is  one  in 
which  all  can  give  in." 

"  I  don't  know  which  '11  begin,"  said  Fulkerson. 

The  colonel  rose.  "  Mr.  Lindau  must  begin,  sir. 
We  must  begin  by  seeing  Mr.  Lindau,  and  securing 
from  him  the  assurance  that  in  the  expression  of  his 
peculiar  views  he  had  no  intention  of  offering  any  per 
sonal  offence  to  Mr.  "Dryfoos.  If  I  have  formed  a 
correct  estimate  of  Mr.  Lindau,  this  will  be  perfectly 
simple." 

Fulkerson  shook  his  head.  "  But  it  wouldn't  help. 
Dryfoos  don't  care  a  rap  whether  Lindau  meant  any 
personal  offence  or  not.  As  far  as  that  is  concerned, 
he's  got  a  hide  like  a  hippopotamus.  But  what  he 
hates  is  Lindau's  opinions,  and  what  he  says  is  that  no 
man  who  holds  such  opinions  shall  have  any  work  from 
him.  And  what  March  says  is  that  no  man  shall  be 
punished  through  him  for  his  opinions,  he  don't  care 
what  they  are." 

The  colonel  stood  a  moment  in  silence.  "  And  what 
do  you  expect  me  to  do  under  the  circumstances  ?" 

"  I  came  to  you  for  advice — I  thought  you  might 
suggest — " 

"  Do  you  wish  me  to  see  Mr.  Dryfoos  ?" 

"Well,  that's  about  the  size  of  it,"  Fulkerson  ad 
mitted.  "  You  see,  colonel,"  he  hastened  on,  "  I  know 
that  you  have  a  great  deal  of  influence  -with  him;  that 

430 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

article  of  yours  is  about  the  only  thing  he's  ever  read 
in  Every  Other  Week,  and  he's  proud  of  your  acquaint 
ance.  Well,  you  know  "  — and  here  Fulkerson  brought 
in  the  figure  that  struck  him  so  much  in  Beaton's 
phrase  and  had  been  on  his  tongue  ever  since; — "  you're 
the  man  on  horseback  to  him ;  and  he'd  be  more  apt  to 
do  what  you  say  than  if  anybody  else  said  it." 

"  You  are  very  good,  sir,"  said  the  colonel,  trying 
to  be  proof  against  the  flattery,  "  but  I  am  afraid  you 
overrate  my  influence."  Fulkerson  let  him  ponder  it 
silently,  and  his  daughter  governed  her  impatience  by 
holding  her  fan  against  her  lips.  Whatever  the  process 
was  in  the  colonel's  mind,  he  said  at  last :  "  I  see  no 
good  reason  for  declining  to  act  for  you,  Mr.  Fulker 
son,  and  I  shall  be  very  happy  if  I  can  be  of  service 
to  you.  But "-  —he  stopped  Fulkerson  from  cutting  in 
with  precipitate  thanks — "  I  think  I  have  a  right,  sir, 
to  ask  what  your  course  will  be  in  the  event  of  failure  ?" 

"  Failure  ?"  Fulkerson  repeated,  in  dismay. 

"  Yes,  sir.  I  will  not  conceal  from  you  that  this 
mission  is  one  not  wholly  agreeable  to  my  feelings." 

"  Oh,  I  understand  that,  colonel,  and  I  assure  you 
that  I  appreciate,  I — 

"  There  is  no  use  trying  to  blink  the  fact,  sir,  that 
there  are  certain  aspects  of  Mr.  Dryfoos's  character 
in  which  he  is  not  a  gentleman.  We  have  alluded  to 
this  fact  before,  and  I  need  not  dwell  upon  it  now.  I 
may  say,  however,  that  my  misgivings  were  not  wholly 
removed  last  night." 

"  No,"  Fulkerson  assented ;  though  in  his  heart  he 
thought  the  old  man  had  behaved  very  well. 

"  What  I  wish  to  say  now  is  that  I  cannot  consent 
to  act  for  you,  in  this  matter,  merely  as  an  intermediary 
whose  failure  would  leave  the  affair  in  statu  quo.79 

"  I  see,"  said  Fulkerson. 

431 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  And  I  should  like  some  intimation,  some  assurance, 
as  to  which  party  your  own  feelings  are  with  in  the 
difference." 

The  colonel  bent  his  eyes  sharply  on  Fulkerson; 
Miss  Woodburn  let  hers  fall;  Fulkerson  felt  that  he 
was  being  tested,  and  he  said,  to  gain  time,  "  As  be 
tween  Lindau  and  Dryf oos  ?"  though  he  knew  this  was 
not  the  point. 

"  As  between  Mr.  Dryfoos  and  Mr.  March,"  said 
the  colonel. 

Fulkerson  drew  a  long  breath  and  took  his  courage 
in  both  hands.  "  There  can't  be  any  choice  for  me  in 
such  a  case.  I'm  for  March,  every  time." 

The  colonel  seized  his  hand,  and  Miss  Woodburn 
said,  "  If  there  had  been  any  choice  fo'  you  in  such 
a  case,  I  should  never  have  let  papa  stir  a  step  with 
you." 

"  Why,  in  regard  to  that,"  said  the  colonel,  with  a 
literal  application  of  the  idea,  "  was  it  your  intention 
that  we  should  both  go  ?" 

"  Well,  I  don't  know ;  I  suppose  it  was." 

"  I  think  it  will  be  better  for  me  to  go  alone,"  said 
the  colonel;  and,  with  a  color  from  his  experience  in 
affairs  of  honor,  he  added :  "  In  these  matters  a  prin 
cipal  cannot  appear  without  compromising  his  dignity. 
I  believe  I  have  all  the  points  clearly  in  mind,  and  I 
think  I  should  act  more  freely  in  meeting  Mr.  Dryfoos 
alone." 

Fulkerson  tried  to  hide  the  eagerness  with  which 
he  met  these  agreeable  views.  He  felt  himself  ex 
alted  in  some  sort  to  the  level  of  the  colonel's  senti 
ments,  though  it  would  not  be  easy  to  say  whether  this 
was  through  the  desperation  bred  of  having  committed 
himself  to  March's  side,  or  through  the  buoyant  hope 
he  had  that  the  colonel  would  succeed  in  his  mission. 

432 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I'm  not  afraid  to  talk  with  Dryfoos  about  it,"  he 
said. 

"  There  is  no  question  of  courage,"  said  the  colonel. 
"  It  is  a  question  of  dignity — of  personal  dignity." 

"  Well,  don't  let  that  delay  you,  papa,"  said  his 
daughter,  following  him  to  the  door,  where  she  found 
him  his  hat,  and  Fulkerson  helped  him  on  with  his 
overcoat.  "  Ah  shall  be  jost  wald  to  know  ho'  it's 
toned  oat." 

"  Won't  you  let  me  go  up  to  the  house  with  you  ?" 
Fulkerson  began.  "  I  needn't  go  in — " 

"  I  prefer  to  go  alone,"  said  the  colonel.  "  I  wish 
to  turn  the  points  over  in  my  mind,  and  I  am  afraid 
you  would  find  me  rather  dull  company." 

He  went  out,  and  Fulkerson  returned  with  Miss 
Woodburn  to  the  drawing-room,  where  she  said  the 
Leightons  were.  They  were  not  there,  but  she  did  not 
seem  disappointed. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  she  said,  "  you  have  got  an 
ahdeal  of  friendship,  sure  enough." 

"Me?"  said  Fulkerson.  "Oh,  my  Lord!  Don't 
you  see  I  couldn't  do  anything  else  ?  And  Fm  scared 
half  to  death,  anyway.  If  the  colonel  don't  bring  the 
old  man  round,  I  reckon  it's  all  up  with  me.  But  he'll 
fetch  him.  And  I'm  just  prostrated  with  gratitude  to 
you,  Miss  Woodburn." 

She  waved  his  thanks  aside  with  her  fan.  "  What 
do  you  mean  by  its  being  all  up  with  you?" 

"  Why,  if  the  old  man  sticks  to  his  position,  and  I 
stick  to  March,  we've  both  got  to  go  overboard  together. 
Dryfoos  owns  the  magazine;  he  can  stop  it,  or  he  can 
stop  us,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  as  far  as 
we're  concerned." 

"  And  then  what  ?"  the  girl  pursued. 

"  And  then,  nothing — till  we  pick  ourselves  up." 

433 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Do  you  mean  that  Mr.  Dryfoos  will  put  you  both 
oat  of  your  places  2" 

"  He  may." 

"  And  Mr.  Mawch  takes  the  risk  of  that  jost  fo'  a 
principle  ?" 

"  I  reckon." 

"  And  you  do  it  jost  fo'  an  ahdeal  ?" 

"  It  won't  do  to  own  it.  I  must  have  my  little  axe 
to  grind,  somewhere." 

"  Well,  men  awe  splendid,"  sighed  the  girl.  "  Ah 
will  say  it." 

"  Oh,  they're  not  so  much  better  than  women,"  said 
Fulkerson,  with  a  nervous  jocosity.  "  I  guess  March 
would  have  backed  down  if  it  hadn't  been  for  his  wife. 
She  was  as  hot  as  pepper  about  it,  and  you  could  see 
that  she  would  have  sacrificed  all  her  husband's  rela 
tions  sooner  than  let  him  back  down  an  inch  from  the 
stand  he  had  taken.  It's  pretty  easy  for  a  man  to  stick 
to  a  principle  if  he  has  a  woman  to  stand  by  him.  But 
when  you  come  to  play  it  alone — 

"  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  said  the  girl,  solemnly,  "  Ah  will 
stand  bah  you  in  this,  if  all  the  woald  tones  against 
you."  The  tears  came  into  her  eyes,  and  she  put  out 
her  hand  to  him. 

"  You  will  ?"  he  shouted,  in  a  rapture.  "  In  every 
way  —  and  always  —  as  long  as  you  live  ?  Do  you 
mean  it?"  He  had  caught  her  hand  to  his  breast 
and  was  grappling  it  tight  there  and  drawing  her  to 
him. 

The  changing  emotions  chased  one  another  through 
her  heart  and  over  her  face :  dismay,  shame,  pride,  ten 
derness.  "  You  don't  believe"  she  said,  hoarsely, 
"that  Ah  meant  that?" 

"  No,  but  I  hope  you  do  mean  it ;  for  if  you  don't, 

nothing  else  means  anything." 

434 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

There  was  no  space,  there  was  only  a  point  of  waver 
ing.  "  Ah  do  mean  it." 

When  they  lifted  their  eyes  from  each  other  again 
it  was  half-past  ten.  "  No'  you  most  go,"  she  said. 

"  But  the  colonel— our  fate  ?" 

"  The  co'nel  is  often  oat  late,  and  Ah'm  not  afraid 
of  ouah  fate,  no'  that  we've  taken  it  into  ouah  own 
hands."  She  looked  at  him  with  dewy  eyes  of  trust, 
of  inspiration. 

"  Oh,  it's  going  to  come  out  all  right,"  he  said.  "  It 
can't  come  out  wrong  now,  no  matter  what  happens. 
But  who'd  have  thought  it,  when  I  came  into  this  house, 
in  such  a  state  of  sin  and  misery,  half  an  hour  ago — 

"  Three  houahs  and  a  half  ago !"  she  said.  "  No' 
you  most  jost  go.  Ah'm  tahed  to  death.  Good-night. 
You  can  come  in  the  mawning  to  see — papa."  She 
opened  the  door  and  pushed  him  out  with  enrapturing 
violence,  and  he  ran  laughing  down  the  steps  into  her 
father's  arms. 

"  Why,  colonel !  I  was  just  going  up  to  meet  you." 
He  had  really  thought  he  would  walk  off  his  exultation 
in  that  direction. 

"  I  am  very  sorry  to  say,  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  the  colonel 
began,  gravely,  "  that  Mr.  Dryfoos  adheres  to  his  posi 
tion." 

"  Oh,  all  right,"  said  Fulkerson,  with  unabated  joy. 
"  It's  what  I  expected.  Well,  my  course  is  clear ;  I 
shall  stand  by  March,  and  I  guess  the  world  won't  come 
to  an  end  if  he  bounces  us  both.  But  I'm  everlast 
ingly  obliged  to  you,  Colonel  Woodburn,  and  I  don't 
know  what  to  say  to  you.  I  —  I  won't  detain  you 
now;  it's  so  late.  I'll  see  you  in  the  morning. 
Good-ni— " 

Fulkerson  did  not  realize  that  it  takes  two  to  part. 
The  colonel  laid  hold  of  his  arm  and  turned  away  with 
29  435 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

him.  "  I  will  walk  toward  your  place  with  you.  I 
can  understand  why  you  should  be  anxious  to  know1  the 
particulars  of  my  interview  with  Mr.  Dryfoos  " ;  and 
in  the  statement  which  followed  he  did  not  spare  him 
the  smallest.  It  outlasted  their  walk  and  detained 
them  long  on  the  steps  of  the  Every  Other  Week  build 
ing.  But  at  the  end  Fulkerson  let  himself  in  with  his 
key  as  light  of  heart  as  if  he  nad  been  listening  to  the 
gayest  promises  that  fortune  could  make. 

By  the  time  he  met  March  at  the  office  next  morn 
ing,  a  little,  but  only  a  very  little,  misgiving  saddened 
his  golden  heaven.  He  took  March's  hand  with  high 
courage,  and  said,  "  Well,  the  old  man  sticks  to  his 
point,  March."  He  added,  with  the  sense  of  saying  it 
before  Miss  Woodburn :  "  And  I  stick  by  you.  I've 
thought  it  all  over,  and  I'd  rather  be  right  with  you 
than  wrong  with  him." 

"  Well,  I  appreciate  your  motive,  Fulkerson,"  said 
March.  "  But  perhaps — perhaps  we  can  save  over  our 
heroics  for  another  occasion.  Lindau  seems  to  have  got 
in  with  his,  for  the  present." 

He  told  him  of  Lindau's  last  visit,  and  they  stood 
a  moment  looking  at  each  other  rather  queerly.  Ful 
kerson  was  the  first  to  recover  his  spirits.  "  Well,"  he 
said,  cheerily,  "  that  let's  us  out." 

"  Does  it  ?  I'm  not  sure  it  lets  me  out,"  said  March ; 
but  he  said  this  in  tribute  to  his  crippled  self-respect 
rather  than  as  a  forecast  of  any  action  in  the  matter. 

"  Why,  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  Fulkerson  asked. 
"  If  Lindau  won't  work  for  Dryfoos,  you  can't  make 
him." 

March  sighed.  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  this 
money  ?"  He  glanced  at  the  heap  of  bills  he  had  flung 
on  the  table  between  them. 

Fulkerson  scratched  his  head.     "  Ah,  dogged  if  / 

436 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

know.  Can't  we  give  it  to  the  deserving  poor,  some 
how,  if  we  can  find  'em  ?" 

"  I  suppose  we've  no  right  to  use  it  in  any  way. 
You  must  give  it  to  Dryfoos." 

'''  To  the  deserving  rich  ?  Well,  you  can  always  find 
them.  I  reckon  you  don't  want  to  appear  in  the  trans 
action;  /  don't,  either;  but  I  guess  I  must."  Fulker- 
son  gathered  up  the  money  and  carried  it  to  Conrad. 
He  directed  him  to  account  for  it  in  his  books  as  con 
science-money,  and  he  enjoyed  the  joke  more  than 
Conrad  seemed  to  do  when  he  was  told  where  it  came 
from. 

Fulkerson  was  able  to  wear  off  the  disagreeable  im 
pression  the  affair  left  during  the  course  of  the  fore 
noon,  and  he  met  Miss  Woodburn  with  all  a  lover's 
buoyancy  when  he  went  to  lunch.  She  was  as  happy 
as  he  when  he  told  her  how  fortunately  the  whole  thing 
had  ended,  and  he  took  her  view  that  it  was  a  reward 
of  his  courage  in  having  dared  the  worst.  They  both 
felt,  as  the  newly  plighted  always  do/ that  they  were 
in  the  best  relations  with  the  beneficent  powers,  and 
that  their  felicity  had  been  especially  looked  to  in  the 
disposition  of  events.  They  were  in  a  glow  of  raptur 
ous  content  with  themselves  and  radiant  worship  of 
each  other;  she  was  sure  that  he  merited  the  bright 
future  opening  to  them  both,  as  much  as  if  he  owed 
it  directly  to  some  noble  action  of  his  own ;  he  felt  that 
he  was  indebted  for  the  favor  of  Heaven  entirely  to  the 
still  incredible  accident  of  her  preference  of  him  over 
other  men. 

Colonel  Woodburn,  who  was  not  yet  in  the  secret 
of  their  love,  perhaps  failed  for  this  reason  to  share 
their  satisfaction  with  a  result  so  unexpectedly  brought 
about.  The  blessing  on  their4iopes  seemed  to  his  igno 
rance  to  involve  certain  sacrifices  of  personal  feeling  at 

437 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

which  he  hinted  in  suggesting  that  Dryfoos  should  now 
be  asked  to  make  some  abstract  concessions  and  ac 
knowledgments ;  his  daughter  hastened  to  deny  that 
these  were  at  all  necessary;  and  Fulkerson  easily  ex 
plained  why.  The  thing  was  over;  what  was  the  use 
of  opening  it  up  again  ? 

"  Perhaps  none/'  the  colonel  admitted.  But  he 
added,  "  I  should  like  the  opportunity  of  taking  Mr. 
Lindau's  hand  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Dryfoos  and 
assuring  him  that  I  considered  him  a  man  of  principle 
and  a  man  of  honor — a  gentleman,  sir,  whom  I  was 
proud  and  happy  to  have  known." 

"  Well,  Ah've  no  doabt,"  said  his  daughter,  demure 
ly,  "  that  you'll  have  the  chance  some  day ;  and  we 
would  all  1  alike  to  join  you.  But  at  the  same  tahme, 
Ah  think  Mr.  Fulkerson  is  well  oat  of  it  fo'  the 
present." 


PART   FIFTH 


SUPERFICIALLY,  the  affairs  of  Every  Ofher  Week 
settled  into  their  wonted  form  again,  and  for  Fulker- 
son  they  seemed  thoroughly  reinstated.  But  March 
had  a  feeling  of  impermanency  from  what  had  hap 
pened,  mixed  with  a  fantastic  sense  of  shame  toward 
Lindau.  He  did  not  sympathize  with  Lindau's  opin 
ions  ;  he  thought  his  remedy  for  existing  evils  as  wildly 
impracticable  as  Colonel  Woodburn's.  But  while  he 
thought  this,  and  while  he  could  justly  blame  Fulker- 
son  for  Lindau's  presence  at  Dryfoos's  dinner,  which 
his  zeal  had  brought  about  in  spite  of  March's  pro 
tests,  still  he  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  reproach  of 
uncandor  with  Lindau.  He  ought  to  have  told  him 
frankly  about  the  ownership  of  the  magazine,  and  what 
manner  of  man  the  man  was  whose  money  he  was  tak 
ing.  But  he  said  that  he  never  could  have  imagined 
that  he  was  serious  in  his  preposterous  attitude  in  re 
gard  to  a  class  of  men  who  embody  half  the  prosperity 
of  the  country;  and  he  had  moments  of  revolt  against 
his  own  humiliation  before  Lindau,  in  which  he  found 
it  monstrous  that  he  should  return  Dryfoos's  money  as 
if  it  had  been  the  spoil  of  a  robber.  His  wife  agreed 
with  him  in  these  moments,  and  said  it  was  a  great 
relief  not  to  have  that  tiresome  old  German  coming 
about.  They  had  to  account  for  his  absence  evasively 
to  the  children,  whom  they  could  not  very  well  tell  that 
their  father  was  living  on  money  that  Lindau  disdained 

to  take,  even  though  Lindau  was  wrong  and  their  father 

441 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

was  right.  This  heightened  Mrs.  March's  resentment 
toward  both  Lindau  and  Dryfoos,  who  between  them 
had  placed  her  husband  in  a  false  position.  If  any 
thing,  she  resented  Dryfoos's  conduct  more  than  Lin- 
dau's.  He  had  never  spoken  to  March  about  the  affair 
since  Lindau  had  renounced  his  work,  or  added  to  the 
apologetic  messages  he  had  sent  by  Fulkerson.  So  far 
as  March  knew,  Dryfoos  had  been  left  to  suppose  that 
Lindau  had  simply  stopped  for  some  reason  that  did 
not  personally  affect  him.  They  never  spoke  of  him, 
and  March  was  too  proud  to  ask  either  Fulkerson  or 
Conrad  whether  the  old  man  knew  that  Lindau  had 
returned  his  money.  He  avoided  talking  to  Conrad, 
from  a  feeling  that  if  he  did  he  should  involuntarily 
lead  him  on  to  speak  of  his  differences  with  his  father. 
Between  himself  and  Fulkerson,  even,  he  was  uneasily 
aware  of  a  want  of  their  old  perfect  friendliness.  Ful 
kerson  had  finally  behaved  with  honor  and  courage; 
but  his  provisional  reluctance  had  given  March  the 
measure  of  Fulkerson's  character  in  one  direction,  and 
he  could  not  ignore  the  fact  that  it  was  smaller  than 
he  could  have  wished. 

He  could  not  make  out  whether  Fulkerson  shared 
his  discomfort  or  not.  It  certainly  wore  away,  even 
with  March,  as  time  passed,  and  with  Fulkerson,  in 
the  bliss  of  his  fortunate  love,  it  was  probably  far 
more  transient,  if  it  existed  at  all.  He  advanced  into 
the  winter  as  radiantly  as  if  to  meet  the  spring,  and 
he  said  that  if  there  were  any  pleasanter  month  of  the 
year  than  November,  it  was  December,  especially  when 
the  weather  was  good  and  wet  and  muddy  most  of  the 
time,  so  that  you  had  to  keep  indoors  a  long  while  after 
you  called  anywhere. 

Colonel  Woodburn  had  the  anxiety,  in  view  of  his 
daughter's  engagement,  when  she  asked  his  consent  to 

442 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

it,  that  such  a  dreamer  must  have  in  regard  to  any 
reality  that  threatens  to  affect  the  course  of  his  reveries. 
He  had  not  perhaps  taken  her  marriage  into  account, 
except  as  a  remote  contingency:  and  certainly  Fulker- 
son  was  not  the  kind  of  son-in-law  that  he  had  imagined 
in  dealing  with  that  abstraction.  But  because  he  had 
nothing  of  the  sort  definitely  in  mind,  he  could  not 
oppose  the  selection  of  Fulkerson  with  success;  he 
really  knew  nothing  against  him,  and  he  knew  many 
things  in  his  favor;  Fulkerson  inspired  him  with  the 
liking  that  every  one  felt  for  him  in  a  measure;  he 
amused  him,  he  cheered  him ;  and  the  colonel  had  been 
so  much  used  to  leaving  action  of  all  kinds  to  his 
daughter  that  when  he  came  to  close  quarters  with  the 
question  of  a  son-in-law  he  felt  helpless  to  decide  it, 
and  he  let  her  decide  it,  as  if  it  were  still  to  be  de*- 
cided  when  it  was  submitted  to  him.  She  was  com 
petent  to  treat  it  in  all  its  phases:  not  merely  those 
of  personal  interest,  but  those  of  duty  to  the  broken 
Southern  past,  sentimentally  dear  to  him,  and  practical 
ly  absurd  to  her.  ]STo  such  South  as  he  remembered 
had  ever  existed  to  her  knowledge,  and  no  such  civil 
ization  as  he  imagined  would  ever  exist,  to  her  belief, 
anywhere.  She  took  the  world  as  she  found  it,  and 
made  the  best  of  it.  She  trusted  in  Fulkerson ;  she  had 
proved  his  magnanimity  in  a  serious  emergency;  and 
in  small  things  she  was  willing  fearlessly  to  chance  it 
with  him.  She  was  not  a  sentimentalist,  and  there  was 
nothing  fantastic  in  her  expectations ;  she  was  a  girl  of 
good  sense  and  right  mind,  and  she  liked  the  immedi 
ate  practicality  as  well  as  the  final  honor  of  Fulkerson. 
She  did  not  idealize  him,  but  in  the  highest  effect  she 
realized  him;  she  did  him  justice,  and  she  would  not 
have  believed  that  she  did  him  more  than  justice  if 
she  had  sometimes  known  him  to  do  himself  less. 

443 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Their  engagement  was  a  fact  to  which  the  Leighton 
household  adjusted  itself  almost  as  simply  as  the  lovers 
themselves ;  Miss  Woodburn  told  the  ladies  at  once,  and 
it  was  not  a  thing  that  Fulkerson  could  keep  from 
March  very  long.  He  sent  word  of  it  to  Mrs.  March 
by  her  husband ;  and  his  engagement  perhaps  did  more 
than  anything  else  to  confirm  the  confidence  in  him 
which  had  been  shaken  by  his  early  behavior  in  the 
Lindau  episode,  and  not  wholly  restored  by  his  tardy 
fidelity  to  March.  But  now  she  felt  that  a  man  who 
wished  to  get  married  so  obviously  and  entirely  for 
love  was  full  of  all  kinds  of  the  best  instincts,  and 
only  needed  the  guidance  of  a  wife  to  become  very 
noble.  .She  interested  herself  intensely  in  balancing 
the  respective  merits  of  the  engaged  couple,  and  after 
her  call  upon  Miss  Woodburn  in  her  new  character  she 
prided  herself  upon  recognizing  the  worth  of  some 
strictly  Southern  qualities  in  her,  while  maintaining 
the  general  average  of  ~New  England  superiority.  She 
could  not  reconcile  herself  to  the  Virginian  custom 
illustrated  in  her  having  been  christened  with  the  sur 
name  of  Madison;  and  she  said  that  its  pet  form  of 
Mad,  which  Fulkerson  promptly  invented,  only  made 
it  more  ridiculous. 

Fulkerson  was  slower  in  telling  Beaton.  He  was 
afraid,  somehow,  of  Beaton's  taking  the  matter  in  the 
cynical  way ;  Miss  Woodburn  said  she  would  break  off 
the  engagement  if  Beaton  was  left  to  guess  it  or  find 
it  out  by  accident,  and  then  Fulkerson  plucked  up  his 
courage.  Beaton  received  the  news  with  gravity,  and 
with  a  sort  of  melancholy  meekness  that  strongly  moved 
Fulkerson's  sympathy,  and  made  him  wish  that  Beaton 
was  engaged,  too. 

It  made  Beaton  feel  very  old ;  it  somehow  left  him 
behind  and  forgotten;  in  a  manner,  it  made  him  feel 

444 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

trifled  with.  Something  of  the  unfriendliness  of  fate 
seemed  to  overcast  his  resentment,  and  he  allowed  the 
sadness  of  his  conviction  that  he  had  not  the  means  to 
marry  on  to  tinge  his  recognition  of  the  fact  that  Alma 
Leighton  would  not  have  wanted  him  to  marry  her  if 
he  had.  He  was  now  often  in  that  martyr  mood  in 
which  he  wished  to  help  his  father;  not  only  to  deny 
himself  Chianti,  but  to  forego  a  fur -lined  overcoat 
which  he  intended  to  get  for  the  winter.  He  post 
poned  the  moment  of  actual  sacrifice  as  regarded  the 
Chianti,  and  he  bought  the  overcoat  in  an  anguish  of 
self-reproach.  He  wore  it  the  first  evening  after  he 
got  it  in  going  to  call  upon  the  Leightons,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  a  piece  of  ghastly  irony  when  Alma  compli 
mented  his  picturesqueness  in  it  and  asked  him  to  let 
her  sketch  him. 

"  Oh,  you  can  sketch  me,"  he  said,  with  so  much 
gloom  that  it  made  her  laugh. 

"  If  you  think  it's  so  serious,  I'd  rather  not." 

"  No,  no !     Go  ahead !     How  do  you  want  me  ?" 

"  Oh,  fling  yourself  down  on  a  chair  in  one  of 
your  attitudes  of  studied  negligence;  and  twist  one 
corner  of  your  mustache  with  affected  absence  of 
mind." 

"  And  you  think  I'm  always  studied,  always  af 
fected?" 

"  I  didn't  say  so." 

"  I  didn't  ask  you  what  you  said" 

"  And  I  won't  tell  you  what  I  think." 

"  Ah,  I  know  what  you  think." 

"  What  made  you  ask,  then  ?"  The  girl  laughed 
again  with  the  satisfaction  of  her  sex  in  cornering  a 
man. 

Beaton  made  a  show  of  not  deigning  to  reply,  and 
put  himself  in  the  pose  she  suggested,  frowning. 

445 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Ah,  that's  it.     But  a  little  more  animation — 

" '  As  when  a  great  thought  strikes  along  the  brain, 
And  flushes  all  the  cheek/" 

She  put  her  forehead  down  on  the  back  of  her  hand 
and  laughed  again.  "  You  ought  to  be  photographed. 
You  look  as  if  you  were  sitting  for  it." 

Beaton  said :  "  That's  because  I  know  I  am  being 
photographed,  in  one  way.  I  don't  think  you  ought  to 
call  me  affected.  I  never  am  so  with  you;  I  know  it 
wouldn't  be  of  any  use." 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Beaton,  you  flatter." 

"  No,  I  never  flatter  you." 

"  I  meant  you  flattered  yourself." 

"How?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.     Imagine." 

"  I  know  what  you  mean.  You  think  I  can't  be 
sincere  with  anybody." 

"  Oh  no,  I  don't." 

"  What  do  you  think  ?" 

"  That  you  can't — try."  Alma  gave  another  victori 
ous  laugh. 

Miss  Woodburn  and  Fulkerson  would  once  have  both 
feigned  a  great  interest  in  Alma's  sketching  Beaton, 
and  made  it  the  subject  of  talk,  in  which  they  ap 
proached  as  nearly  as  possible  the  real  interest  of  their 
lives.  ~Now  they  frankly  remained  away  in  the  dining- 
room,  which  was  very  cozy  after  the  dinner  had  dis 
appeared;  the  colonel  sat  with  his  lamp  and  paper  in 
the  gallery  beyond ;  Mrs.  Leighton  was  about  her  house 
keeping  affairs,  in  the  content  she  always  felt  when 
Alma  was  with  Beaton. 

"  They  seem  to  be  having  a  pretty  good  time  in 
there,"  said  Fulkerson,  detaching  himself  from  his 

own  absolute  good  time  as  well  as  he  could, 

446 


A    HAZARD    OF    HEW    FORTUNES 

"  At  least  Alma  does,"  said  Miss  Woodburn. 

"  Do  you  think  she  cares  for  him  ?" 

"  Quahte  as  moch  as  he  desoves." 

"  What  makes  you  all  down  on  Beaton  around  here  ? 
He's  not  such  a  bad  fellow." 

"  We  awe  not  all  doan  on  him.  Mrs.  Leighton  isn't 
doan  on  him." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  if  it  was  the  old  lady,  there  wouldn't 
be  much  question  about  it." 

They  both  laughed,  and  Alma  said,  "  They  seem  to 
be  greatly  amused  with  something  in  there." 

"  Me,  probably,"  said  Beaton.  "  I  seem  to  amuse 
everybody  to-night." 

"  Don't  you  always  ?" 

"  I  always  amuse  you,  I'm  afraid,  Alma." 

She  looked  at  him  as  if  she  were  going  to  snub  him 
openly  for  using  her  name ;  but  apparently  she  decided 
to  do  it  covertly.  "  You  didn't  at  first.  I  really  used 
to  believe  you  could  be  serious,  once." 

"  Couldn't  you  believe  it  again  ?     Now  1" 

"  Not  when  you  put  on  that  wind-harp  stop." 

"  Wetmore  has  been  talking  to  you  about  me.  He 
would  sacrifice  his  best  friend  to  a  phrase.  He  spends 
his  time  making  them." 

"  He's  made  some  very  pretty  ones  about  you." 

"  Like  the  one  you  just  quoted  ?" 

"  No,  not  exactly.  He  admires  you  ever  so  much. 
He  says — "  She  stopped,  teasingly. 

"What?" 

"  He  says  you  could  be  almost  anything  you  wished, 
if  you  didn't  wish  to  be  everything." 

"  That  sounds  more  like  the  school  of  Wetmore. 
That's  what  you  say,  Alma.  Well,  if  there  were 
something  you  wished  me  to  be,  I  could  be  it." 

"  We  might  adapt  Kingsley :  e  Be  good,  sweet  man, 

447 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  let  who  will  be  clever.' '  He  could  not  help  laugh 
ing.  She  went  on :  "I  always  thought  that  was  the 
most  patronizing  and  exasperating  thing  ever  addressed 
to  a  human  girl ;  and  we've  had  to  stand  a  good  deal  in 
our  time.  I  should  like  to  have  it  applied  to  the  other 
'  sect '  a  while.  As  if  any  girl  that  was  a  girl  would  be 
good  if  ske  had  the  remotest  chance  of  being  clever." 

"  Then  you  wouldn't  wish  me  to  be  good  ?"  Beaton 
asked. 

"  Not  if  you  were  a  girl." 

"  You  want  to  shock  me.  Well,  I  suppose  I  deserve 
it.  But  if  I  were  one-tenth  part  as  good  as  you  are, 
Alma,  I  should  have  a  lighter  heart  than  I  have  now. 
I  know  that  I'm  fickle,  but  I'm  not  false,  as  you  think 
I  am." 

"  Who  said  I  thought  you  were  false  ?" 

"  NTo  one,"  said  Beaton.  "  It  isn't  necessary,  when 
you  look  it — live  it." 

"  Oh,  dear !  I  didn't  know  I  devoted  my  whole  time 
to  the  subject." 

"  I  know  I'm  despicable.  I  could  tell  you  some 
thing — the  history  of  this  day,  even — that  would  make 
you  despise  me."  Beaton  had  in  mind  his  purchase  of 
the  overcoat,  which  Alma  was  getting  in  so  effectively, 
with  the  money  he  ought  to  have  sent  his  father. 
"  But,"  he  went  on,  darkly,  with  a  sense  that  what  he 
was  that  moment  suffering  for  his  selfishness  must  some 
how  be  a  kind  of  atonement,  which  would  finally  leave 
him  to  the  guiltless  enjoyment  of  the  overcoat,  "you 
wouldn't  believe  the  depths  of  baseness  I  could  de 
scend  to." 

"  I  would  try,"  said  Alma,  rapidly  shading  the  col 
lar,  "  if  you'd  give  me  some  hint." 

Beaton  had  a  sudden  wish  to  pour  out  his  remorse 
to  her,  but  he  was  afraid  of  her  laughing  at  him.  He 

448 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

said  to  himself  that  this  was  a  very  wholesome  fear, 
and  that  if  he  could  always  have  her  at  hand  he  should 
not  make  a  fool  of  himself  so  often.  A  man  conceives 
of  such  an  office  as  the  very  noblest  for  a  woman ;  he 
worships  her  for  it  if  he  is  magnanimous.  But  Beaton 
was  silent,  and  Alma  put  back  her  head  for  the  right 
distance  on  her  sketch.  "  Mr.  Fulkerson  thinks  you 
are  the  sublimest  of  human  beings  for  advising  him  to 
get  Colonel  Woodburn  to  interview  Mr.  Dryfoos  about 
Lindau.  What  have  you  ever  done  with  your  Judas  ?" 

"  I  haven't  done  anything  with  it.  Nadel  thought 
he  would  take  hold  of  it  at  one  time,  but  he  dropped 
it  again.  After  all,  I  don't  suppose  it  could  be  popu 
larized.  Fulkerson  wanted  to  offer  it  as  a  premium  to 
subscribers  for  Every  Other  Week,  but  I  sat  down  on 
that." 

Alma  could  not  feel  the  absurdity  of  this,  and  she 
merely  said,  "  Every  Other  Week  seems  to  be  going  on 
just  the  same  as  ever." 

"  Yes,  the  trouble  has  all  blown  over,  I  believe.  Ful- 
kerson,"  said  Beaton,  with  a  return  to  what  they  were 
saying,  "  has  managed  the  whole  business  very  well. 
But  he  exaggerates  the  value  of  my  advice." 

"  Very  likely,"  Alma  suggested,  vaguely.  "  Or,  no ! 
Excuse  me!  He  couldn't,  he  couldn't!"  She  laughed 
delightedly  at  Beaton's  foolish  look  of  embarrassment. 

He  tried  to  recover  his  dignity  in  saying,  "  He's  a 
very  good  fellow,  and  he  deserves  his  happiness." 

"  Oh,  indeed !"  said  Alma,  perversely.  "  Does  any 
one  deserve  happiness  ?" 

"  I  know  I  don't,"  sighed  Beaton. 

"  You  mean  you  don't  get  it." 

"  I  certainly  don't  get  it." 

"  Ah,  but  that  isn't  the  reason." 

"  What  is  ?" 

449 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  That's  the  secret  of  the  universe,"  She  bit  in  her 
lower  lip,  and  looked  at  him  with  eyes  of  gleaming 
fun. 

"  Are  you  never  serious  ?"  he  asked. 

"  With  serious  people — always." 

"  I  am  serious ;  and  you  have  the  secret  of  my  hap 
piness — "  He  threw  himself  impulsively  forward  in 
his  chair. 

"  Oh,  pose,  pose !"  she  cried. 

"  I  won't  pose,"  he  answered,  "  and  you  have  got  to 
listen  to  me.  You  know  I'm  in  love  with  you;  and 
I  know  that  once  you  cared  for  me.  Can't  that 
time — won't  it — come  back  again?  Try  to  think  so, 
Alma!" 

"  E"o,"  she  said,  briefly  and  seriously  enough. 

"  But  that  seems  impossible.  What  is  it  I've  done — 
what  have  you  against  me  ?" 

"  Nothing.  But  that  time  is  past.  I  couldn't  recall 
it  if  I  wished.  Why  did  you  bring  it  up?  You've 
broken  your  word.  You  know  I  wouldn't  have  let  you 
keep  coming  here  if  you  hadn't  promised  never  to  re 
fer  to  it." 

"  How  could  I  help  it  ?  With  that  happiness  near  us 
— Fulkerson — " 

"  Oh,  it's  that?    I  might  have  known  it!" 

"  No,  it  isn't  that — it's  something  far  deeper.  But 
if  it's  nothing  you  have  against  me,  what  is  it,  Alma, 
that  keeps  you  from  caring  for  me  now  as  you  did 
then  ?  I  haven't  changed." 

"  But  I  have.  I  shall  never  care  for  you  again,  Mr. 
Beaton;  you  might  as  well  understand  it  once  for  all. 
Don't  think  it's  anything  in  yourself,  or  that  I  think 
you  unworthy  of  me.  I'm  not  so  self-satisfied  as  that ; 
I  know  very  well  that  I'm  not  a  perfect  character,  and 
that  I've  no  claim  on  perfection  in  anybody  else.  I 

450 


A    IIAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES, 

think  women  who  want  that  arc  fools;  they  won't  get 
it,  and  they  don't  deserve  it.  But  I've  learned  a  good 
deal  more  about  myself  than  I  knew  in  St.  Barnaby, 
and  a  life  of  work,  of  art,  and  of  art  alone — that's  what 
I've  made  up  my  mind  to." 

"  A  woman  that's  made  up  her  mind  to  that  has  no 
heart  to  hinder  her !" 

u  Would  a  man  have  that  had  done  so  ?" 

"  But  I  don't  believe  you,  Alma.  You're  merely 
laughing  at  me.  And,  besides,  with  me  you  needn't 
give  up  art.  We  could  work  together.  You  know  how 
much  I  admire  your  talent.  I  believe  I  could  help  it 
— serve  it;  I  would  be  its  willing  slave,  and  yours, 
Heaven  knows!" 

"  I  don't  want  any  slave — nor  any  slavery.  I  want 
to  be  free — always,  Xow  do  you  sec  ?  I  don't  care 
for  you,  and  I  never  could  in  the  old  way ;  but  I  should 
have  to  care  for  some  one  more  than  I  believe  I  ever 
nhall  to  give  up  my  work.  Shall  we  go  on?"  She 
looked  at  her  sketch. 

"  Xo,  we  shall  not  go  on,"  he  said,  gloomily,  as  he 
rose. 

"  I  suppose  you  blame  me,"  she  said,  rising  too. 

"  Oh  no !  I  blame  no  one — or  only  myself.  I  threw 
my  chance  away." 

"  I'm  glad  you  see  that ;  and  I'm  glad  you  did  it. 
You  don't  believe  me,  of  course.  Why  do  men  think 
life  can  be  only  the  one  thing  to  women  ?  And  if  you 
come  to  the  selfish  view,  who  are  the  happy  women? 
I'm  sure  that  if  work  doesn't  fail  me,  health  won't, 
and  happiness  won't." 

"  But  you  could  work  on  with  me — " 

"  Second   fiddle.      Do   you   suppose    I    shouldn't   be 
woman  enough  to  wish  my  work  always  less  and  lower 
than  yours?    At  least  I've  heart  enough  for  that!" 
30  451 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

i  You've  heart  enough  for  anything,  Alma.     I  was 
a  fool  to  say  you  hadn't." 

"  I  think  the  women  who  keep  their  hearts  have  an 
even  chance,  at  least,  of  having  heart — " 

"  Ah,  there's  where  you're  wrong  1" 

"  But  mine  isn't  mine  to  give  you,  anyhow.  And 
now  I  don't  want  you  ever  to  speak  to  me  about  this 
again." 

"Oh,  there's  no  danger!"  he  cried,  bitterly.  "I 
shall  never  willingly  see  you  again." 

"  That's  as  you  like,  Mr.  Beaton.  We've  had  to  be 
very  frank,  but  I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  be  friends. 
Still,  we  needn't,  if  you  don't  like." 

"  And  I  may  come — I  may  come  here  —  as  —  as 
usual?" 

"  Why,  if  you  can  consistently,"  she  said,  with  a 
smile,  and  she  held  out  her  hand  to  him. 

He  went  home  dazed,  and  feeling  as  if  it  were  a  bad 
joke  that  had  been  put  upon  him.  At  least  the  affair 
went  so  deep  that  it  estranged  the  aspect  of  his  familiar 
studio.  Some  of  the  things  in  it  were  not  very  fa 
miliar  ;  he  had  spent  lately  a  great  deal  on  rugs,  on 
stuffs,  on  Japanese  bric-a-brac.  When  he  saw  these 
things  in  the  shops  he  had  felt  that  he  must  have  them ; 
that  they  were  necessary  to  him ;  and  he  was  partly  in 
debt  for  them,  still  without  having  sent  any  of  his  earn 
ings  to  pay  his  father.  As  he  looked  at  them  now  he 
liked  to  fancy  something  weird  and  conscious  in  them 
as  the  silent  witnesses  of  a  broken  life.  He  felt  about 
among  some  of  the  smaller  objects  on  the  mantel  for 
his  pipe.  Before  he  slept  he  was  aware,  in  the  luxury 
of  his  despair,  of  a  remote  relief,  an  escape;  and,  after 
all,  the  understanding  he  had  come  to  with  Alma  was 
only  the  explicit  formulation  of  terms  long  tacit  be 
tween  them.  Beaton  would  have  been  puzzled  more 

452 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

than  ho  knew  if  she  had  taken  him  seriously.  It  was 
inevitable  that  ho  should  declare  himself  in  love  with 
her;  hut  he  was  not  disappointed  at  her  rejection  of 
his  love;  perhaps  not  so  much  as  he  would  have  been 
at  its  acceptance,  though  he  tried  to  think  otherwise, 
and  to  give  himself  airs  of  tragedy.  He  did  not  really 
feel  that  the  result  was  worse  than  what  had  gone  be 
fore,  and  it  left  him  free. 

But  he  did  not  go  to  the  Leightons  again  for  so  long 
a  time  that  Mrs.  Leighton  asked  Alma  what  had  hap 
pened.  Alma  told  her. 

"  And  he  won't  come  any  more  ?"  her  mother  sighed, 
Avith  reserved  censure. 

"  Oh,  I  think  he  will.  lie  couldn't  very  Avell  come 
the  next  night.  But  he  has  the  habit  of  coming,  and 
with  Mr.  Beaton  habit  is  everything — even  the  habit 
of  thinking  he's  in  love  with  some  one." 

"  Alma,"  said  her  mother,  "  I  don't  think  it's  very 
nice  for  a  girl  to  let  a  young  man  keep  coming  to  see 
her  after  she's  refused  him." 

"  Why  not,  if  it  amuses  him  and  doesn't  hurt  the 
girl?" 

"  But  it  does  hurt  her,  'Alma.  It — it's  indelicate. 
It  isn't  fair  to  him;  it  gives  him  hopes." 

"  Well,  mamma,  it  hasn't  happened  in  the  given  case 
yet.  If  Mr.  Beaton  comes  again,  I  Avon't  see  him,  and 
you  can  forbid  him  the  house." 

"  If  I  could  only  feel  sure,  Alma,"  said  her  mother, 
taking  up  another  branch  of  the  inquiry,  "  that  you 
really  knew  your  own  mind,  I  should  be  easier 
about  it." 

"  Then  you  can  rest  perfectly  quiet,  mamma.  I 
do  know  my  own  mind;  and,  Avhat's  worse,  I  knoAv 
Mr.  Beaton's  mind." 

"  What  do  yon  mean  ?" 

453 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  moan  that  lie  spoke  to  me  the  other  night  simply 
because  Mr.  Fulkerson's  engagement  had  broken  him 
all  up." 

"  What  expressions !"  Mrs.  Leighton  lamented. 

"  He  let  it  out  himself,"  Alma  went  on.  "  And  you 
wouldn't  have  thought  it  was  very  flattering  yourself. 
When  I'm  made  love  to,  after  this,  I  prefer  to  be  made 
love  to  in  an  off-year,  when  there  isn't  another  engaged 
couple  anywhere  about." 

"  Did  you  tell  him  that,  Alma  ?" 

"  Tell  him  that !  What  do  you  mean,  mamma  ?  I 
may  be  indelicate,  but  I'm  not  quite  so  indelicate  as 
that." 

"  I  didn't  mean  you  were  indelicate,  really,  Alma, 
but  I  wanted  to  warn  you.  I  think  Mr.  Beaton  was 
very  much  in  earnest." 

"  Oh,  so  did  he !" 

"  And  you  didn't  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  for  the  time  being.  I  suppose  he's  very 
much  in  earnest  with  Miss  Vance  at  times,  and  with 
Miss  Dryfoos  at  others.  Sometimes  he's  a  painter, 
and  sometimes  he's  an  architect,  and  sometimes  he's 
a  sculptor.  He  has  too  many  gifts  —  too  many 
tastes." 

"  And  if  Miss  Vance  and  Miss  Dryfoos — " 

"  Oh,  do  say  Sculpture  and  Architecture,  mamma ! 
It's  getting  so  dreadfully  personal !" 

"  Alma,  you  know  that  I  only  wish  to  get  at  your 
real  feeling  in  the  matter." 

"  And  you  know  that  I  don't  want  to  let  you — es 
pecially  when  I  haven't  got  any  real  feeling  in  the 
matter.  But  I  should  think — speaking  in  the  abstract 
entirely — that  if  either  of  those  arts  was  ever  going  to 
be  in  earnest  about  him,  it  would  want  his  exclusive 

devotion  for  a  week  at  least." 

454 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  didn't  know,"  said  Mrs.  Leighton,  "  that  he  was 
doing  anything  now  at  the  others.  I  thought  he  was 
entirely  taken  up  with  his  work  on  Every  Other 
Week? 

"  Oh,  he  is !  he  is !" 

"  And  you  certainly  can't  say,  my  dear,  that  he 
hasn't  been  very  kind  —  very  useful  to  you,  in  that 
matter." 

"  And  so  I  ought  to  have  said  yes  out  of  gratitude  ? 
Thank  you,  mainma !  I  didn't  know  you  held  me  so 
cheap." 

"  You  know  whether  I  hold  you  cheap  or  not,  Alma. 
I  don't  want  you  to  cheapen  yourself.  I  don't  want 
you  to  trifle  with  any  one.  I  want  you  to  be  honest 
with  yourself." 

"  Well,  come  now,  mamma !  Suppose  you  begin. 
I've  been  perfectly  honest  with  myself,  and  I've  been 
honest  with  Mr.  Beaton.  I  don't  care  for  him,  and 
I've  told  him  I  didn't ;  so  he  may  be  supposed  to  know 
it.  If  he  comes  here  after  this,  he'll  come  as  a  plain, 
unostentatious  friend  of  the  family,  and  it's  for  you  to 
say  whether  he  shall  come  in  that  capacity  or  not.  I 
hope  you  won't  trifle  with  him,  and  let  him  get  the 
notion  that  he's  coming  on  any  other  basis." 

Mrs.  Leighton  felt  the  comfort  of  the  critical 
attitude  far  too  keenly  to  abandon  it  for  anything 
constructive.  She  only  said,  "  You  know  very  well, 
Alma,  that's  a  matter  I  can  have  nothing  to  do 
with." 

"  Then  you  leave  him  entirely  to  me  ?" 

"  I  hope  you  will  regard  his  right  to  candid  and 
open  treatment." 

"He's  had  nothing  but  the  most  open  and  candid 
treatment  from  me,  mamma.  It's  you  that  wants  to 
play  fast  and  loose  with  him.  And,  to  tell  you  the 

455 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

truth,  I  believe  he  would  like  that  a  good  deal  better; 
I  believe  that,  if  there's  anything  he  hates,  it's  openness 
and  candor." 

Alma  laughed,  and  put  her  arms  round  her  mother, 
who  could  not  help  laughing  a  little,  too. 


II 


THE  winter  did  not  renew  for  Christine  and  Mela 
the  social  opportunity  which  the  spring  had  offered. 
After  the  musicale  at  Mrs.  Horn's,  they  both  made 
their  party-call,  as  Mela  said,  in  due  season;  but  they 
did  not  find  Mrs.  Horn  at  home,  and  neither  she  nor 
Miss  Vance  came  to  see  them  after  people  returned  to 
town  in  the  fall.  They  tried  to  believe  for  a  time  that 
Mrs.  Horn  had  not  got  their  cards ;  this  pretence  failed 
them,  and  they  fell  back  upon  their  pride,  or  rather 
Christine's  pride.  Mela  had  little  but  her  good-nature 
to  avail  her  in  any  exigency,  and  if  Mrs.  Horn  or  Miss 
Vance  had  come  to  call  after  a  year  of  neglect,  she 
would  have  received  them  as  amiably  as  if  they  had 
not  lost  a  day  in  coming.  But  Christine  had  drawn  a 
Hne  beyond  which  they  would  not  have  been  forgiven; 
and  she  had  planned  the  words  and  the  behavior  with 
which  she  would  have  punished  them  if  they  had  ap 
peared  then.  Neither  sister  imagined  herself  in  any 
wise  inferior  to  them;  but  Christine  was  suspicious,  at 
least,  and  it  was  Mela  who  invented  the  hypothesis  of 
the  lost  cards.  As  nothing  happened  to  prove  or  to  dis 
prove  the  fact,  she  said,  "  I  move  we  put  Coonrod 
up  to  gittun'  it  out  of  Miss  Vance,  at  some  of  their 
meetun's." 

"  If  you  do,"  said  Christine,  "  I'll  kill  you." 
Christine,  however,  had  the  visits  of  Beaton  to  con 
sole  her,  and,  if  these  seemed  to  have  no  definite  aim, 

457 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

she  was  willing  to  rest  in  the  pleasure  they  gave  her 
vanity;  but  Mela  had  nothing.  Sometimes  she  even 
wished  they  were  all  Lack  on  the  farm. 

"  It  would  be  the  best  thing  for  both  of  you,"  said 
Mrs.  Dryfoos,  in  answer  to  such  a  burst  of  despera 
tion.  "  I  don't  think  New  York  is  any  place  for 
girls." 

"Well,  what  I  hate,  mother,"  said  Mela,  "is,  it 
don't  seem  to  be  any  place  for  young  men,  either." 
She  found  this  so  good  when  she  had  said  it  that  she 
laughed  over  it  till  Christine  was  angry. 

"  A  body  would  think  there  had  never  been  anv  joke 
before." 

"  I  don't  see  as  it's  a  joke,"  said  Mrs.  Dryfoos.  "  It's 
the  plain  truth." 

"  Oh,  don't  mind  her,  mother,"  said  Mela.  "  She's 
put  out  because  her  old  Mr.  Beaton  ha'n't  been  round 
for  a  couple  o'  weeks.  If  you  don't  watch  out,  that 
fellow  '11  give  you  the  slip  yit,  Christine,  after  all  your 
pains." 

"  Well,  there  ain't  anybody  to  give  you  the  slip, 
Mela,"  Christine  clawed  back. 

"  No ;  I  ha'n't  ever  set  my  traps  for  anybody."  This 
was  what  Mela  said  for  want  of  a  better  retort;  but  it 
was  not  quite  true.  When  Kendricks  came  with  Bea 
ton  to  call  after  her  father's  dinner,  she  used  all  her 
cunning  to  ensnare  him,  and  she  had  him  to  herself 
as  long  as  Beaton  stayed;  Dryfoos  sent  down  word 
that  he  was  not  very  well  and  had  gone  to  bed.  The 
novelty  of  Mela  had  worn  off  for  Kendricks,  and  sho 
found  him,  as  she  frankly  told  him,  not  half  as  enter 
taining  as  he  was  at  Mrs.  Horn's ;  but  she  did  her  best 
with  him  as  the  only  flirtable  material  which  had  yet 
come  to  her  hand.  It  would  have  been  her  ideal  to 
have  the  young  men  stay  till  past  midnight,  and  her 

"  458 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

father  come  down-stairs  in  his  stocking-feet  and  tell 
them  it  was  time  to  go.  But  they  made  a  visit  of 
decorous  brevity,  and  Kendricks  did  not  come  again. 
She  mot  him  afterward,  once,  as  she  was  crossing  the 
pavement  in  Union  Square  to  get  into  her  coupe,  and 
made  the  most  of  him;  but  it  was  necessarily  very 
little,  and  so  he  passed  out  of  her  life  without  having 
left  any  trace  in  her  heart,  though  Mela  had  a  heart- 
that  she  would  have  put  at  the  disposition  of  almost 
any  young  man  that  wanted  it.  Kendricks  himself, 
Manhattan  cockney  as  he  was,  with  scarcely  more  out 
look  into  the  average  American  nature  than  if  he  had 
been  kept  a  prisoner  in  New  York  society  all  his  days, 
perceived  a  property  in  her  which  forbade  him  as  a 
man  of  conscience  to  trifle  with  her ;  something  earthly 
good  and  kind,  if  it  was  simple  and  vulgar.  In  re 
vising  his  impressions  of  her,  it  seemed  to  him  that  she 
would  come  even  to  better  literary  effect  if  this  were 
recognized  in  her;  and  it  made  her  sacred,  in  spite  of 
her  willingness  to  fool  and  to  be  fooled,  in  her  merely 
human  quality.  After  all,  he  saw  that  she  wished 
honestly  to  love  and  to  be  loved,  and  the  lures  she 
iln-ow  out  to  that  end  seemed  to  him  pathetic  rather 
than  ridiculous;  he  could  not  join  Beaton  in  laughing 
at  her;  and  he  did  not  like  Beaton's  laughing  at  the 
other  girl,  either.  It  seemed  to  Kendricks,  with  the 
code  of  honor  which  he  mostly  kept  to  himself  because 
he  was  a  little  ashamed  to  find  there  were  so  few  others 
like  it,  that  if  Beaton  cared  nothing  for  the  other  girl 
— and  Christine  appeared  simply  detestable  to  Ken 
dricks — he  had  better  keep  away  from  her,  and  not 
give  her  the  impression  he  was  in  love  with  her.  He 
rather  fancied  that  this  was  the  part  of  a  gentleman, 
and  he  could  not  have  penetrated  to  that  aesthetic  and 
moral  complexity  which  formed  the  consciousness  of  a 

459 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

nature  like  Beaton's  and  was  chiefly  a  torment  to  itself ; 
he  could  not  have  conceived  of  the  wayward  impulses 
indulged  at  every  moment  in  little  things  till  the 
straight  highway  was  traversed  and  well-nigh  lost  un 
der  their  tangle.  To  do  whatever  one  likes  is  finally 
to  do  nothing  that  one  likes,  even  though  one  con 
tinues  to  do  what  one  will;  but  Kendricks,  though  a 
sage  of  twenty-seven,  was  still  too  young  to  understand 
this. 

Beaton  scarcely  understood  it  himself,  perhaps  be 
cause  he  was  not  yet  twenty-seven.  He  only  knew  that 
his  will  was  somehow  sick;  that  it  spent  itself  in  ca 
prices,  and  brought  him  no  happiness  from  the  fulfil 
ment  of  the  most  vehement  wish.  But  he  was  aware 
that  his  wishes  grew  less  and  less  vehement;  he  began 
to  have  a  fear  that  some  time  he  might  have  none  at 
all.  It  seemed  to  him  that  if  he  could  once  do  some 
thing  that  was  thoroughly  distasteful  to  himself,  he 
might  make  a  beginning  in  the  right  direction;  but 
when  he  tried  this  on  a  small  scale,  it  failed,  and  it 
seemed  stupid.  Some  sort  of  expiation  was  the  thing  he 
needed,  he  was  sure ;  but  he  could  not  think  of  any 
thing  in  particular  to  expiate ;  a  man  could  not  expiate 
his  temperament,  and  his  temperament  was  what  Bea 
ton  decided  to  be  at  fault.  He  perceived  that  it  went 
deeper  than  even  fate  would  have  gone ;  he  could  have 
fulfilled  an  evil  destiny  and  had  done  with  it,  however 
terrible.  His  trouble  was  that  he  could  not  escape  from 
himself;  and,  for  the  most  part,  he  justified  himself  in 
refusing  to  try.  After  he  had  come  to  that  distinct 
understanding  with  Alma  Leighton,  and  experienced 
the  relief  it  really  gave  him,  he  thought  for  a  while  that 
if  it  had  fallen  out  otherwise,  and  she  had  put  him  in 
charge  of  her  destiny,  he  might  have  been  better  able  to 
manage  his  own.  But  as  it  was,  he  could  only  drift, 

400 


A    HAZAED    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  let  all  other  things  take  their  course.  It  was  neces 
sary  that  he  should  go  to  see  her  afterward,  to  show 
her  that  he  was  equal  to  the  event ;  but  he  did  not  go  so 
often,  and  he  went  rather  oftener  to  the  Dryfooses;  it 
was  not  easy  to  see  Margaret  Vance,  except  on  the  so 
ciety  terms.  With  much  sneering  and  scorning,  he  ful 
filled  the  duties  to  Mrs.  Horn  without  which  he  knew 
he  should  be  dropped  from  her  list;  but  one  might  go 
to  many  of  her  Thursdays  without  getting  many  words 
with  her  niece.  Beaton  hardly  knew  whether  he  wanted 
many;  the  girl  kept  the  charm  of  her  innocent  stylish 
ness  ;  but  latterly  she  wanted  to  talk  more  about  social 
questions  than  about  the  psychical  problems  that  young 
people  usually  debate  so  personally.  Son  of  the  work 
ing-people  as  he  was,  Beaton  had  never  cared  anything 
about  such  matters;  he  did  not  know  about  them  or 
wish  to  know ;  he  was  perhaps  too  near  them.  Besides, 
there  was  an  embarrassment,  at  least  on  her  part,  con 
cerning  the  Dryfooses.  She  was  too  high-minded  to 
blame  him  for  having  tempted  her  to  her  failure  with 
them  by  his  talk  about  them ;  but  she  was  conscious  of 
avoiding  them  in  her  talk.  She  had  decided  not  to 
renew  the  effort  she  had  made  in  the  spring;  because 
she  could  not  do  them  good  as  fellow-creatures  needing 
food  and  warmth  and  work,  and  she  would  not  try  to 
befriend  them  socially;  she  had  a  horror  of  any  such 
futile  sentimentality.  She  would  have  liked  to  account 
to  Beaton  in  this  way  for  a  course  which  she  suspected 
he  must  have  heard  their  comments  upon,  but  she  did 
not  quite  know  how  to  do  it ;  she  could  not  be  sure  how 
much  or  how  little  he  cared  for  them.  Some  tentative 
approaches  which  she  made  toward  explanation  were 
met  with  such  eager  disclaim  of  personal  interest  that 
she  knew  less  than  before  what  to  think ;  and  she  turned 
the  talk  from  the  sisters  to  the  brother,  whom  it  seemed 

461 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

she  still  continued  to  meet  in  their  common  work  among 
the  poor. 

"  He  seems  very  different,"  she  ventured. 

"  Oh,  quite,"  said  Beaton.  "  He's  the  kind  of  per 
son  that  you  might  suppose  gave  the  Catholics  a  hint 
for  the  cloistral  life ;  he's  a  cloistered  nature — the  nat 
ure  that  atones  and  suffers  for.  But  he's  awfully  dull 
company,  don't  you  think?  I  never  can  get  anything 
out  of  him." 

"  He's  very  much  in  earnest." 

"  Remorselessly.  We've  got  a  profane  and  mun 
dane  creature  there  at  the  office  who  runs  us  all,  and 
it's  shocking  merely  to  see  the  contact  of  the  two  nat 
ures.  When  Fulkerson  gets  to  joking  Dryfoos  —  he 
likes  to  put  his  joke  in  the  form  of  a  pretence  that 
Dryfoos  is  actuated  by  a  selfish  motive,  that  he  has  an 
eye  to  office,  and  is  working  up  a  political  interest  for 
himself  on  the  East  Side  —  it's  something  inexpres 
sible." 

"  I  should  think  so,"  said  Miss  Vance,  with  such 
lofty  disapproval  that  Beaton  felt  himself  included  in 
it  for  having  merely  told  what  caused  it. 

He  could  not  help  saying,  in  natural  rebellion, 
"  Well,  the  man  of  one  idea  is  always  a  little  ridicu 
lous." 

"  When  his  idea  is  right  ?"  she  demanded.  t{  A  right 
idea  can't  be  ridiculous." 

"  Oh,  I  only  said  the  man  that  held  it  was.  He's 
flat;  he  has  no  relief,  no  projection." 

She  seemed  unable  to  answer,  and  he  perceived  that 
he  had  silenced  her  to  his  own  disadvantage.  It  ap 
peared  to  Beaton  that  she  was  becoming  a  little  too 
exacting  for  comfort  in  her  idealism.  He  put  down 
the  cup  of  tea  he  had  been  tasting,  and  said,  in  his 
solemn  staccato :  "  I  must  go.  Good-bye !"  and  got  in- 

4G2 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

stantly  away  from  her,  with  an  effect  he  had  of  having 
suddenly  thought  of  something  imperative. 

He  went  up  to  Mrs.  Horn  for  a  moment's  hail  and 
farewell,  and  felt  himself  subtly  detained  by  her 
through  fugitive  passages  of  conversation  with  half 
a  dozen  other  people.  He  fancied  that  at  crises  of 
this  strange  interview  Mrs.  Horn  was  about  to  be 
come  confidential  with  him,  and  confidential,  of  all 
things,  about  her  niece.  She  ended  by  not  having 
palpably  been  so.  In  fact,  the  concern  in  her  mind 
would  have  been  difficult  to  impart  to  a  young  man, 
and  after  several  experiments  Mrs.  Horn  found  it  im 
possible  to  say  that  she  wished  Margaret  could  some 
how  be  interested  in  lower  things  than  those  which 
occupied  her.  She  had  watched  with  growing  anxiety 
the  girl's  tendency  to  various  kinds  of  self-devotion. 
She  had  dark  hours  in  which  she  even  feared  her  en 
tire  withdrawal  from  the  world  in  a  life  of  good  works. 
Before  now,  girls  had  entered  the  Protestant  sister 
hoods,  which  appeal  so  potently  to  the  young  and 
generous  imagination,  and  Margaret  was  of  just  the 
temperament  to  be  influenced  by  them.  During  the  past 
summer  she  had  been  unhappy  at  her  separation  from 
the  cares  that  had  engrossed  her  more  and  more  as  their 
stay  in  the  city  drew  to  an  end  in  the  spring,  and  she 
had  hurried  her  aunt  back  to  town  earlier  in  the  fall 
than  she  would  have  chosen  to  come.  Margaret  had  her 
correspondents  among  the  working-women  whom  she  be 
friended.  Mrs.  Horn  was  at  one  time  alarmed  to  find 
that  Margaret  was  actually  promoting  a  strike  of  the 
button-hole  workers.  This,  of  course,  had  its  ludicrous 
side,  in  connection  with  a  young  lady  in  good  society, 
and  a  person  of  even  so  little  humor  as  Mrs.  Horn  could 
not  help  seeing  it.  At  the  same  time,  she  could  not 

help  foreboding  the  worst  from  it;  she  was  afraid  that 

463 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Margaret's  health  would  give  way  under  the  strain,  and 
that  if  she  did  not  go  into  a  sisterhood  she  would  at 
least  go  into  a  decline.  She  began  the  winter  with  all 
such  counteractive  measures  as  she  could  employ.  At 
an  age  when  such  things  weary,  she  threw  herself  into 
the  pleasures  of  society  with  the  hope  of  dragging  Mar 
garet  after  her ;  and  a  sympathetic  witness  must  have 
followed  with  compassion  her  course  from  ball  to  ball, 
from  reception  to  reception,  from  parlor  -  reading  to 
parlor-reading,  from  musicale  to  musicale,  from  play 
to  play,  from  opera  to  opera.  She  tasted,  after  she  had 
practically  renounced  them,  the  bitter  and  the  insipid 
flavors  of  fashionable  amusement,  in  the  hope  that  Mar 
garet  might  find  them  sweet,  and  now  at  the  end  she 
had  to  own  to  herself  that  she  had  failed.  It  was  com 
ing  Lent  again,  and  the  girl  had  only  grown  thinner 
and  more  serious  with  the  diversions  that  did  not  divert 
her  from  the  baleful  works  of  beneficence  on  which 
Mrs.  Horn  felt  that  she  was  throwing  her  youth  away. 
Margaret  could  have  borne  either  alone,  but  together 
they  were  wearing  her  out.  She  felt  it  a  duty  to  un 
dergo  the  pleasures  her  aunt  appointed  for  her,  but  she 
could  not  forego  the  other  duties  in  which  she  found 
her  only  pleasure. 

She  kept  up  her  music  still  because  she  could  em 
ploy  it  at  the  meetings  for  the  entertainment,  and,  as 
she  hoped,  the  elevation  of  her  working-women ;  but  she 
neglected  the  other  aesthetic  interests  which  once  oc 
cupied  her;  and,  at  sight  of  Beaton  talking  with  her, 
Mrs.  Horn  caught  at  the  hope  that  he  might  somehow 
be  turned  to  account  in  reviving  Margaret's  former 
interest  in  art.  She  asked  him  if  Mr.  Wetmore  had 
his  classes  that  winter  as  usual ;  and  she  said  she  wished 
Margaret  could  be  induced  to  go  again:  Mr.  Wetmore 
always  said  that  she  did  not  draw  very  well,  but  that 

464 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

she  had  a  great  deal  of  feeling  for  it,  and  her  work  was 
interesting.  She  asked,  were  the  Leigh  tons  in  town 
again;  and  she  murmured  a  regret  that  she  had  not 
heen  able  to  see  anything  of  them,  without  explain 
ing  why;  she  said  she  had  a  fancy  that  if  Margaret 
knew  Miss  Leighton,  and  what  she  was  doing,  it  might 
stimulate  her,  perhaps.  She  supposed  Miss  Leighton 
was  still  going  on  with  her  art  ? 

Beaton  said,  Oh  yes,  he  believed  so. 

But  his  manner  did  not  encourage  Mrs.  Horn  to  pur 
sue  her  aims  in  that  direction,  and  she  said,  with  a 
sigh,  she  wished  lie  still  had  a  class ;  she  always  fancied 
that  Margaret  got  more  good  from  his  instruction  than 
from  any  one  else's. 

He  said  that  she  was  very  good ;  but  there  was  really 
nobody  who  knew  half  as  much  as  Wetmore,  or  could 
make  any  one  understand  half  as  much. 

Mrs.  Horn  was  afraid,  she  said,  that  Mr.  Wetmore's 
terrible  sincerity  discouraged  Margaret;  he  would  not 
let  her  have  any  illusions  about  the  outcome  of  what 
she  was  doing ;  and  did  not  Mr.  Beaton  think  that  some 
illusion  was  necessary  with  young  people  ?  Of  course, 
it  was  very  nice  of  Mr.  Wetmore  to  be  so  honest,  but 
it  did  not  always  seem  to  be  the  wisest  thing.  She 
begged  Mr.  Beaton  to  try  to  think  of  some  one  who 
would  be  a  little  less  severe.  Her  tone  assumed  a  deeper 
interest  in  the  people  who  were  coming  up  and  going 
away,  and  Beaton  perceived  that  he  was  dismissed. 

He  went  away  with  vanity  flattered  by  the  sense  of 
having  been  appealed  to  concerning  Margaret,  and  then 
he  began  to  chafe  at  what  she  had  said  of  Wetmore's 
honesty,  apropos  of  her  wish  that  he  still  had  a  class 
himself.  Did  she  mean,  confound  her!  that  lie  was 
insincere,  and  would  let  Miss  \7'ance  suppose  she  had 
more  talent  than  she  really  had?  The  more  Beaton 

465 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

thought  of  this,  the  more  furious  he  became,  and  the 
more  he  was  convinced  that  something  like  it  had  been 
unconsciously  if  not  consciously  in  her  mind.  He 
framed  some  keen  retorts,  to  the  general  effect  that 
with  the  atmosphere  of  illusion  preserved  so  completely 
at  home,  Miss  Vance  hardly  needed  it  in  her  art  studies. 
Having  just  determined  never  to  go  near  Mrs.  Horn's 
Thursdays  again,  he  decided  to  go  once  more,  in  order 
to  plant  this  sting  in  her  capacious  but  somewhat  cal 
lous  bosom ;  and  he  planned  how  he  would  lead  the 
talk  up  to  the  point  from  which  he  should  launch  it. 

In  the  mean  time  he  felt  the  need  of  some  present 
solace,  such  as  only  unqualified  worship  could  give  him ; 
a  cruel  wrish  to  feel  his  power  in  some  direction  where, 
even  if  it  were  resisted,  it  could  not  be  overcome,  drove 
him  on.  That  a  woman  who  was  to  Beaton  the  em 
bodiment  of  artificiality  should  intimate,  however  in 
nocently — the  innocence  made  it  all  the  worse — that  he 
was  less  honest  than  Wetmore,  whom  he  knew  to  be  so 
much  more  honest,  was  something  that  must  be  re 
taliated  somewhere  before  his  self  -  respect  could  be 
restored.  It  was  only  five  o'clock,  and  he  went  on 
up- town  to  the  Dryfooses',  though  he  had  been  there 
only  the  night  before  last.  He  asked  for  the  ladies, 
and  Mrs.  Mandel  received  him. 

"  The  young  ladies  are  down-town  shopping,"  she 
said,  "  but  I  am  very  glad  of  the  opportunity  of  see 
ing  you  alone,  Mr.  Beaton.  You  know  I  lived  several 
years  in  Europe." 

"  Yes,"  said  Beaton,  wondering  what  that  could  have 
to  do  with  her  pleasure  in  seeing  him  alone.  "  I  be 
lieve  so?"  He  involuntarily  gave  his  words  the  ques 
tioning  inflection. 

"  You  have  lived  abroad,  too,  and  so  yon  won't  find 
what  I  am  going  to  ask  so  strange.  Mr.  Beaton,  why  do 

466 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

you  come  so  much  to  this  house  ?"  Mrs.  Mandel  bent 
forward  with  an  aspect  of  ladylike  interest  and  smiled. 

Beaton  frowned.     "  Why  do  I  come  so  much  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Why  do  I —  Excuse  me,  Mrs.  Mandel,  but  will 
you  allow  me  to  ask  why  you  ask  ?" 

"  Oh,  certainly.  There's  no  reason  why  I  shouldn't 
say,  for  I  wish  you  to  be  very  frank  with  me.  I  ask 
because  there  are  two  young  ladies  in  this  house;  and, 
in  a  certain  way,  I  have  to  take  the  place  of  a  mother 
to  them.  I  needn't  explain  why;  you  know  all  the 
people  here,  and  you  understand.  I  have  nothing  to 
say  about  them,  but  I  should  not  be  speaking  to  you 
now  if  they  were  not  all  rather  helpless  people.  They 
do  not  know  the  world  they  have  come  to  live  in  here, 
and  they  cannot  help  themselves  or  one  another.  But 
you  do  know  it,  Mr.  Beaton,  and  I  am  sure  you  know 
just  how  much  or  how  little  you  mean  by  coming  here. 
You  are  either  interested  in  one  of  these  young  girls 
or  you  are  not.  If  you  are,  I  have  nothing  more  to 
say.  If  you  are  not — "  Mrs.  Mandel  continued  to 
smile,  but  the  smile  had  grown  more  perfunctory,  and 
it  had  an  icy  gleam. 

Beaton  looked  at  her  with  surprise  that  he  gravely 
kept  to  himself.  He  had  always  regarded  her  as  a 
social  nullity,  with  a  kind  of  pity,  to  be  sure,  as  a 
civilized  person  living  among  such  people  as  the  Dry- 
f ooses,  but  not  without  a  humorous  contempt ;  he  had 
thought  of  her  as  Mandel,  and  sometimes  as  Old  Man- 
del,  though  she  was  not  half  a  score  of  years  his  senior, 
and  was  still  well  on  the  sunny  side  of  forty.  He 
reddened,  and  then  turned  an  angry  pallor.  "  Excuse 
me  again,  Mrs.  Mandel.  Do  you  ask  this  from  the 
young  ladies  ?" 

"  Certainly  not,"  she  said,  with  the  best  temper,  and 
31  467 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  something  in  her  tone  that  convicted  Beaton  of 
vulgarity  in  putting  his  question  of  her  authority  in 
the  form  of  a  sneer.  "As  I  have  suggested,  they  would 
hardly  know  how  to  help  themselves  at  all  in  such  a 
matter.  I  have  no  objection  to  saying  that  I  ask  it 
from  the  father  of  the  young  ladies.  Of  course,  in  and 
for  myself  I  should  have  no  right  to  know  anything 
about  your  affairs.  I  assure  you  the  duty  of  knowing 
isn't  very  pleasant."  The  little  tremor  in  her  clear 
voice  struck  Beaton  as  something  rather  nice. 

"  I  can  very  well  believe  that,  Mrs.  Mandel,"  he  said, 
with  a  dreamy  sadness  in  his  own.  He  lifted  his  eyes 
and  looked  into  hers.  "  If  I  told  you  that  I  cared  noth 
ing  about  them  in  the  way  you  intimate  ?" 

u  Then  I  should  prefer  to  let  you  characterize  your 
own  conduct  in  continuing  to  come  here  for  the  year 
past,  as  you  have  done,  and  tacitly  leading  them  on  to 
infer  differently."  They  both  mechanically  kept  up 
the  fiction  of  plurality  in  speaking  of  Christine,  but 
there  was  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  either  which  of  the 
young  ladies  the  other  meant. 

A  good  many  thoughts  went  through  Beaton's  mind, 
and  none  of  them  were  flattering.  He  had  not  been 
unconscious  that  the  part  he  had  played  toward  this 
girl  was  ignoble,  and  that  it  had  grown  meaner  as  the 
fancy  which  her  beauty  had  at  first  kindled  in  him  had 
grown  cooler.  He  was  aware  that  of  late  he  had  been 
amusing  himself  with  her  passion  in  a  way  that  was 
not  less  than  cruel,  not  because  he  wished  to  do  so,  but 
because  he  was  listless  and  wished  nothing.  He  rose  in 
saying :  "  I  might  be  a  little  more  lenient  than  you 
think,  Mrs.  Mandel ;  but  I  won't  trouble  you  with  any 
palliating  theory.  I  will  not  come  any  more." 

He  bowed,  and  Mrs.  Mandel  said,  "  Of  course,  it's 
only  your  action  that  I  am  concerned  with." 

468 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

She  seemed  to  him  merely  triumphant,  and  he  could 
not  conceive  what  it  had  cost  her  to  nerve  herself  up 
to  her  too  easy  victory.  He  left  Mrs.  Mandel  to  a  far 
harder  lot  than  had  fallen  to  him,  and  he  went  away 
hating  her  as  an  enemy  who  had  humiliated  him  at 
a  moment  when  he  particularly  needed  exalting.  It 
was  really  very  simple  for  him  to  stop  going  to  see 
Christine  Dryfoos,  but  it  was  not  at  all  simple  for 
Mrs.  Mandel  to  deal  with  the  consequences  of  his  not 
coming.  He  only  thought  how  lightly  she  had  stopped 
him,  and  the  poor  woman  whom  he  had  left  trembling 
for  what  she  had  been  obliged  to  do  embodied  for  him 
the  conscience  that  accused  him  of  unpleasant  things. 

"  By  heavens !  this  is  piling  it  up,"  he  said  to  him 
self  through  his  set  teeth,  realizing  how  it  had  hap 
pened  right  on  top  of  that  stupid  insult  from  Mrs. 
Horn.  Now  he  should  have  to  give  up  his  place  on 
Every  Oilier  Week;  he  could  not  keep  that,  under  the 
circumstances,  even  if  some  pretence  were  not  made  to 
get  rid  of  him;  he  must  hurry  and  anticipate  any 
such  pretence;  he  must  see  Fulkerson  at  once;  he 
wondered  where  he  should  find  him  at  that  hour.  He 
thought,  with  bitterness  so  real  that  it  gave  him  a  kind 
of  tragical  satisfaction,  how  certainly  he  could  find  him 
a  little  later  at  Mrs.  Leighton's;  and  Fulkerson's  hap 
piness  became  an  added  injury. 

The  thing  had,  of  course,  come  about  just  at  the 
wrong  time.  There  never  had  been  a  time  when  Bea 
ton  needed  money  more,  when  he  had  spent  what  he 
had  and  what  he  expected  to  have  so  recklessly.  Ho 
was  in  debt  to  Fulkerson  personally  and  officially  for 
advance  payments  of  salary.  The  thought  of  sending 
money  home  made  him  break  into  a  scoffing  laugh, 
which  he  turned  into  a  cough  in  order  to  deceive  the 
passers.  What  sort  of  face  should  he  go  with  to  Ful- 

469 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

kcrson  and  tell  him  that  he  renounced  his  employment 
on  Every  Oilier  Week;  and  what  should  he  do  when 
he  had  renounced  it  ?  Take  pupils,  perhaps ;  open  a 
class  ?  A  lurid  conception  of  a  class  conducted  on  those 
principles  of  shameless  flattery  at  which  Mrs.  Horn  had 
hinted — he  believed  now  she  had  meant  to  insult  him 
— presented  itself.  Why  should  not  he  act  upon  the 
suggestion  ?  He  thought — with  loathing  for  the  whole 
race  of  women  -  dabblers  in  art  —  how  easy  the  thing 
would  be:  as  easy  as  to  turn  back  now  and  tell  that- 
old  fool's  girl  that  he  loved  her,  and  rake  in  half  his 
millions.  Why  should  not  he  do  that?  No  one  else 
cared  for  him ;  and  at  a  year's  end,  probably,  one  wom 
an  would  be  like  another  as  far  as  the  love  was  con 
cerned,  and  probably  he  should  not  be  more  tired  if 
the  woman  were  Christine  Dryfoos  than  if  she  were 
Margaret  Vance.  He  kept  Alma  Leighton  out  of  the 
question,  because  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart  he  believed 
that  she  must  be  forever  unlike  every  other  woman  to 
him. 

The  tide  of  his  confused  and  aimless  reverie  had 
carried  him  far  down-town,  he  thought;  but  when  he 
looked  up  from  it  to  see  where  he  was  he  found  him 
self  on  Sixth  Avenue,  only  a  little  below  Thirty-ninth 
Street,  very  hot  and  blown;  that  idiotic  fur  overcoat 
was  stifling.  He  could  not  possibly  walk  down  to 
Eleventh;  he  did  not  want  to  walk  even  to  the  Ele 
vated  station  at  Thirty-fourth ;  he  stopped  at  the  corner 
to  wait  for  a  surface-car,  and  fell  again  into  his  bitter 
fancies.  After  a  while  he  roused  himself  and  looked 
up  the  track,  but  there  was  no  car  coming.  He  found 
himself  beside  a  policeman,  who  was  lazily  swinging 
his  club  by  its  thong  from  his  wrist. 

"When  do  you  suppose  a  car  will  be  along?"  he 
asked,  rather  in  a  general  sarcasm  of  the  absence  of  the 

470 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

cars  than  in  any  special  belief  that  the  policeman  could 
tell  him. 

The  policeman  waited  to  discharge  his  tobacco-juice 
into  the  gutter.  u  In  about  a  week,"  he  said,  non 
chalantly. 

u  What's  the  matter?"  asked  Beaton,  wondering  what 
the  joke  could  be. 

"  Strike,"  said  the  policeman.  His  interest  in  Bea 
ton's  ignorance  seemed  to  overcome  his  contempt  of  it. 
"  Knocked  off  everywhere  this  morning  except  Third 
Avenue  and  one  or  two  cross-town  lines."  He  spat 
again  and  kept  his  bulk  at  its  incline  over  the  gutter 
to  glance  at  a  group  of  men  on  the  corner  below.  They 
were  neatly  dressed,  and  looked  like  something  better 
than  working-men,  and  they  had  a  holiday  air  of  being 
in  their  best  clothes. 

"  Some  of  the  strikers  ?"  asked  Beaton. 

The  policeman  nodded. 

"Any  trouble  yet?" 

"  There  won't  be  any  trouble  till  we  begin  to  move 
the  cars,"  said  the  policeman. 

Beaton  felt  a  sudden  turn  of  his  rage  toward  the  men 
whose  action  would  now  force  him  to  walk  five  blocks 
and  mount  the  stairs  of  the  Elevated  station.  "  If 
you'd  take  out  eight  or  ten  of  those  fellows,"  he  said, 
ferociously,  "  and  set  them  up  against  a  wall  and  shoot 
them,  you'd  save  a  great  deal  of  bother." 

"  I  guess  we  sha'n't  have  to  shoot  much,"  said  the 
policeman,  still  swinging  his  locust.  "  Anyway,  we 
sha'n't  begin  it.  If  it  comes  to  a  fight,  though,"  he 
said,  with  a  look  at  the  men  under  the  scooping  rim 
of  his  helmet,  "  we  can  drive  the  whole  six  thousand 
of  'em  into  the  East  River  without  pull  in'  a  trigger." 

"  Are  there  six  thousand  in  it  ?" 

"  About." 

471 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

u  What  do  the  infernal  fools  expect  to  live  on  ?" 

"  The  interest  of  their  money,  I  suppose,"  said  the 
officer,  with  a  grin  of  satisfaction  in  his  irony.  "  Itrs 
got  to  run  its  course.  Then  they'll  come  back  with 
their  heads  tied  up  and  their  tails  between  their  legs, 
and  plead  to  be  taken  on  again." 

"  If  I  was  a  manager  of  the  roads,"  said  Beaton, 
thinking  of  how  much  he  was  already  inconvenienced 
by  the  strike,  and  obscurely  connecting  it  as  one  of  the 
series  with  the  wrongs  he  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
Mrs.  Horn  and  Mrs.  Mandel,  "  I  would  see  them  starve 
before  I'd  take  them  back — every  one  of  them." 

"  Well,"  said  the  policeman,  impartially,  as  a  man 
might  whom  the  companies  allowed  to  ride  free,  but 
who  had  made  friends  with  a  good  many  drivers  and 
conductors  in  the  course  of  his  free  riding,  "  I  guess 
that's  what  the  roads  would  like  to  do  if  they  could ; 
but  the  men  are  too  many  for  them,  and  there  ain't 
enough  other  men  to  take  their  places." 

"  "No  matter,"  said  Beaton,  severely.  "  They  can 
bring  in  men  from  other  places." 

"  Oh,  they'll  do  that  fast  enough,"  said  the  police 
man. 

A  man  came  out  of  the  saloon  on  the  corner  where 
the  strikers  were  standing,  noisy  drunk,  and  they  be-, 
gan,  as  they  would  have  said,  to  have  some  fun  with 
him.  The  policeman  left  Beaton,  and  sauntered  slow 
ly  down  toward  the  group  as  if  in  the  natural  course 
of  an  afternoon  ramble.  On  the  other  side  of  the  street 
Beaton  could  see  another  officer  sauntering  up  from  the 
block  below.  Looking  up  and  down  the  avenue,  so  si 
lent  of  its  horse-car  bells,  he  saw  a  policeman  at  every 
corner.  It  was  rather  impressive. 


Ill 


THE  strike  made  a  good  deal  of  talk  in  the  office 
of  Every  Other  Week — that  is,  it  made  Fulkerson  talk 
a  good  deal.  He  congratulated  himself  that  he  was  not 
personally  incommoded  by  it,  like  some  of  the  fellows 
who  lived  up-town,  and  had  not  everything  under  one 
roof,  as  it  were.  He  enjoyed  the  excitement  of  it,  and 
he  kept  the  office  -  boy  running  out  to  buy  the  extras 
which  the  newsmen  came  crying  through  the  street  al 
most  every  hour  with  a  lamentable,  unintelligible  noise. 
He  read  not  only  the  latest  intelligence  of  the  strike, 
but  the  editorial  comments  on  it,  which  praised  the 
firm  attitude  of  both  parties,  and  the  admirable  meas 
ures  taken  by  the  police  to  preserve  order.  Fulkerson 
enjoyed  the  interviews  with  the  police  captains  and  the 
leaders  of  the  strike;  he  equally  enjoyed  the  attempts 
of  the  reporters  to  interview  the  road  managers,  which 
were  so  graphically  detailed,  and  with  such  a  fine  feel 
ing  for  the  right  use  of  scare-heads  as  to  have  almost 
the  value  of  direct  expression  from  them,  though  it 
seemed  that  they  had  resolutely  refused  to  speak.  He 
said,  at  second-hand  from  the  papers,  that  if  the  men 
behaved  themselves  and  respected  the  rights  of  prop 
erty,  they  would  have  public  sympathy  with  them  every 
time;  but  just  as  soon  as  they  began  to  interfere  with 
the  roads'  right  to  manage  their  own  affairs  in  their 
own  way,  they  must  be  put  down  with  an  iron  hand ; 
the  phrase  "  iron  hand  "  did  Fulkerson  almost  as  much 

473 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

good  as  if  it  had  never  been  used  before.  News  began 
to  come  of  fighting  between  the  police  and  the  strikers 
when  the  roads  tried  to  move  their  cars  with  men  im 
ported  from  Philadelphia,  and  then  Fnlkerson  rejoiced 
at  the  splendid  courage  of  the  police.  At  the  same 
time,  he  believed  what  the  strikers  said,  and  that  the 
trouble  was  not  made  by  them,  but  by  gangs  of  roughs 
acting  without  their  approval.  In  this  juncture  ho 
was  relieved  by  the  arrival  of  the  State  Board  of  Ar 
bitration,  which  took  up  its  quarters,  with  a  great  many 
scare-heads,  at  one  of  the  principal  hotels,  and  invited 
the  roads  and  the  strikers  to  lay  the  matter  in  dispute 
before  them ;  he  said  that  now  we  should  see  the  work 
ing  of  the  greatest  piece  of  social  machinery  in  modern 
times.  But  it  appeared  to  work  only  in  the  alacrity 
of  the  strikers  to  submit  their  grievance.  The  roads 
were  as  one  road  in  declaring  that  there  was  nothing  to 
arbitrate,  and  that  they  were  merely  asserting  their 
right  to  manage  their  own  affairs  in  their  own  way. 
One  of  the  presidents  was  reported  to  have  told  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Board,  who  personally  summoned  him,  to 
get  out  and  to  go  about  his  business.  Then,  to  Ful- 
kerson's  extreme  disappointment,  the  august  tribunal, 
acting  on  behalf  of  the  sovereign  people  in  the  inter 
est  of  peace,  declared  itself  powerless,  and  got  out,  and 
would,  no  doubt,  have  gone  about  its  business  if  it  had 
had  any.  Fulkorson  did  not  know  what  to  say,  perhaps 
because  the  extras  did  not;  but  March  laughed  at  this 
result. 

"  It's  a  good  deal  like  the  military  manoeuvre  of  the 
King  of  France  and  his  forty  thousand  men.  I  sup 
pose  somebody  told  him  at  the  top  of  the  hill  that  there 
was  nothing  to  arbitrate,  and  to  get  out  and  go  about 
his  business,  and  that  was  the  reason  he  marched  down 
after  he  had  marched  up  with  all  that  ceremony.  What 

474 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

amuses  me  is  to  find  that  in  an  affair  of  this  kind  the 
roads  have  rights  and  the  strikers  have  rights,  but  the 
public  has  no  rights  at  all.  The  roads  and  the  strikers 
are  allowed  to  fight  out  a  private  war  in  our  midst — 
as  thoroughly  and  precisely  a  private  war  as  any  we 
despise  the  Middle  Ages  for  having  tolerated — as  any 
street  war  in  Florence  or  Verona — and  to  fight  it  out 
at  our  pains  and  expense,  and  we  stand  by  like  sheep 
and  wait  till  they  get  tired.  It's  a  funny  attitude  for 
a  city  of  fifteen  hundred  thousand  inhabitants." 

"  What  would  you  do  ?"  asked  Fulkerson,  a  good 
deal  daunted  by  this  view  of  the  case. 

"Do?  Nothing.  Hasn't  the  State  Board  of  Ar 
bitration  declared  itself  powerless  ?  We  have  no  hold 
upon  the  strikers;  and  we're  so  used  to  being  snubbed 
and  disobliged  by  common  carriers  that  we  have  for 
gotten  our  hold  on  the  roads  and  always  allow  them 
to  manage  their  own  affairs  in  their  own  way,  quite  as 
if  we  had  nothing  to  do  with  them  and  they  owed  us 
no  services  in  return  for  their  privileges." 

"  That's  a  good  deal  so,"  said  Fulkerson,  disordering 
his  hair.  "  Well,  it's  nuts  for  the  colonel  nowadays. 
He  says  if  he  was  boss  of  this  town  he  would  seize  tho 
roads  on  behalf  of  the  people,  and  man  'em  with  police 
men,  and  run  'em  till  the  managers  had  come  to  terms 
with  the  strikers ;  and  he'd  do  that  every  time  there  was 
a  strike." 

"  Doesn't  that  rather  savor  of  the  paternalism  he 
condemned  in  Lindau  ?"  asked  March. 

"  I  don't  know.     It  savors  of  horse  sense." 

"  You  are  pretty  far  gone,  Fulkerson.  T  thought 
you  were  the  most  engaged  man  I  ever  saw ;  but  I  guess 
you're  more  father-in-lawed.  And  before  you're  mar 
ried,  too." 

"  Well,  the  colonel's  a  glorious  old  fellow,  March. 

475 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

I  wish  he  had  the  power  to  do  that  thing,  just  for 
the  fun  of  looking  on  while  he  waltzed  in.  He's  on 
the  keen  jump  from  morning  till  night,  and  he's  up 
late  and  early  to  see  the  row.  I'm  afraid  he'll  get  shot 
at  some  of  the  fights ;  he  sees  them  all ;  I  can't  get  any 
show  at  them:  haven't  seen  a  brickbat  shied  or  a  club 
swung  yet.  Have  you  ?" 

"  No,  I  find  I  can  philosophize  the  situation  about 
as  well  from  the  papers,  and  that's  what  I  really  want 
to  do,  I  suppose.  Besides,  I'm  solemnly  pledged  by 
Mrs.  March  not  to  go  near  any  sort  of  crowd,  under 
penalty  of  having  her  bring  the  children  and  go  with 
me.  Her  theory  is  that  we  must  all  die  together;  the 
children  haven't  been  at  school  since  the  strike  began. 
There's  no  precaution  that  Mrs.  March  hasn't  used. 
She  watches  me  whenever  I  go  out,  and  sees  that  I  start 
straight  for  this  office." 

Fulkerson  laughed  and  said :  "  Well,  it's  probably 
the  only  thing  that's  saved  your  life.  Have  you  seen 
anything  of  Beaton  lately  ?" 

"  No.     You  don't  mean  to  say  lie's  killed !" 

"  Not  if  he  knows  it.  But  I  don't  know —  What 
do  you  say,  March?  What's  the  reason  you  couldn't 
get  us  up  a  paper  on  the  strike  ?" 

"  I  knew  it  would  fetch  round  to  Every  Other  Week, 
somehow." 

"  No,  but  seriously.  There  '11  be  plenty  of  news 
paper  accounts.  But  you  could  treat  it  in  the  his 
torical  spirit  —  like  something  that  happened  several 
centuries  ago;  De  Foe's  Plague  of  London  style. 
Heigh?  What  made  me  think  of  it  was  Beaton.  If 
I  could  get  hold  of  him,  you  two  could  go  round  to 
gether  and  take  down  its  aesthetic  aspects.  It's  a  big 
thing,  March,  this  strike  is.  I  tell  you  it's  imposing 
to  have  a  private  war,  as  you  say,  fought  out  this  way, 

?476 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

in  the  heart  of  New  York,  and  New  York  not  minding 
it  a  bit.  See?  Might  take  that  view  of  it.  With 
your  descriptions  and  Beaton's  sketches — well,  it 
would  just  be  the  greatest  card!  Come!  What  do 
you  say  ?" 

"'  Will  you  undertake  to  make  it  right  with  Mrs. 
March  if  I'm  killed  and  she  and  the  children  are  not 
killed  with  me  ?" 

"  Well,  it  would  be  difficult.  I  wonder  how  it  would 
do  to  get  Kendricks  to  do  the  literary  part?" 

"  I've  no  doubt  he'd  jump  at  the  chance.  I've  yet 
to  see  the  form  of  literature  that  Kendricks  wouldn't 
lay  down  his  life  for." 

"  Say !"  March  perceived  that  Fulkerson  was  about 
to  vent  another  inspiration,  and  smiled  patiently. 
"  Look  here !  What's  the  reason  we  couldn't  get  one 
of  the  strikers  to  write  it  up  for  us  ?" 

"  Might  have  a  symposium  of  strikers  and  presi 
dents,"  March  suggested. 

"  No ;  I'm  in  earnest.  They  say  some  of  those  fel 
lows — especially  the  foreigners — are  educated  men.  I 
know  one  fellow  —  a  Bohemian  —  that  used  to  edit  a 
Bohemian  newspaper  here.  He  could  write  it  out  in 
his  kind  of  Dutch,  and  we  could  get  Lindau  to  trans 
late  it." 

"  I  guess  not,"  said  March,  dryly. 

"  Why  not  ?  He'd  do  it  for  the  cause,  wouldn't  he  ? 
Suppose  you  put  it  up  on  him  the  next  time  you  see 
him." 

"  I  don't  see  Lindau  any  more,"  said  March.  He 
added,  "  I  guess  he's  renounced  mo  along  with  Mr. 
Dryfoos's  money." 

"  Pshaw !  You  don't  mean  he  hasn't  been  round 
since  3" 

"  He  came  for  a  while,  but  he's  left  off  coming  now. 

477 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

I  don't  feel  particularly  gay  about  it,"  March  said, 
with  some  resentment  of  Fulkerson's  grin.  u  He's  left 
me  in  debt  to  him  for  lessons  to  the  children." 

Fulkerson  laughed  out.  "  Well,  he  is  the  greatest 
old  fool !  Who'd  'a'  thought  he'd  V  been  in  earnest 
with  those  i  brincibles  '  of  his  ?  But  I  suppose  there 
have  to  be  just  such  cranks;  it  takes  all  kinds  to  make 
a  world." 

"  There  has  to  be  one  such  crank,  it  seems,"  March 
partially  assented.  "  One's  enough  for  me." 

"  I  reckon  this  thing  is  nuts  for  Lindau,  too,"  said 
Fulkerson.  "  Why,  it  must  act  like  a  schooner  of  beer 
on  him  all  the  while,  to  see  '  gabidal '  embarrassed  like 
it  is  by  this  strike.  It  must  make  old  Lindau  feel  like 
he  was  back  behind  those  barricades  at  Berlin.  Well, 
he's  a  splendid  old  fellow;  pity  he  drinks,  as  I  re 
marked  once  before." 

When  March  left  the  office  he  did  not  go  home  so 
directly  as  he  came,  perhaps  because  Mrs.  March's  eye 
was  not  on  him.  He  was  very  curious  about  some 
aspects  of  the  strike,  whose  importance,  as  a  great  social 
convulsion,  he  felt  people  did  not  recognize ;  and,  with 
his  temperance  in  everything,  he  found  its  negative 
expressions  as  significant  as  its  more  violent  phases.  He 
had  promised  his  wife  solemnly  that  he  would  keep  away 
from  these,  and  he  had  a  natural  inclination  to  keep 
his  promise;  he  had  no  wish  to  be  that  peaceful  spec 
tator  who  always  gets  shot  when  there  is  any  firing  011 
a  mob.  He  interested  himself  in  the  apparent  indif 
ference  of  the  mighty  city,  which  kept  on  about  its  busi 
ness  as  tranquilly  as  if  the  private  war  being  fought  out 
in  its  midst  were  a  vague  rumor  of  Indian  troubles  on 
the  frontier;  and  he  realized  how  there  might  once 
have  been  a  street  feud  of  forty  years  in  Florence  with 
out  interfering  materially  with  the  industry  and  pros- 

478 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

perity  of  the  city.  On  Broadway  there  was  a  silence 
where  a  jangle  and  clatter  of  horse-car  bells  and  hoofs 
had  been,  but  it  was  not  very  noticeable;  and  on  the 
avenues,  roofed  by  the  elevated  roads,  this  silence  of 
the  surface  tracks  was  not  noticeable  at  all  in  the  roar 
of  the  trains  overhead.  Some  of  the  cross-town  cars 
were  beginning  to  run  again,  with  a  policeman  on  the 
rear  of  each;  on  the  Third  Avenue  line,  operated  by 
non  -  union  men,  who  had  not  struck,  there  were  two 
policemen  beside  the  driver  of  every  car,  and  two  be 
side  the  conductor,  to  protect  them  from  the  strikers. 
But  there  Were  no  strikers  in  sight,  and  on  Second 
Avenue  they  stood  quietly  about  in  groups  on  the  cor 
ners.  While  March  watched  them  at  a  safe  distance,  a 
car  laden  with  policemen  came  down  the  track,  but 
none  of  the  strikers  offered  to  molest  it.  In  their 
simple  Sunday  best,  March  thought  them  very  quiet, 
decent-looking  people,  and  he  could  well  believe  that 
they  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  riotous  outbreaks  in 
other  parts  of  the  city.  He  could  hardly  believe  that 
there  were  any  such  outbreaks ;  he  began  more  and 
more  to  think  them  mere  newspaper  exaggerations  in 
the  absence  of  any  disturbance,  or  the  disposition  to  it, 
that  he  could  see.  He  walked  on  to  the  East  River: 
Avenues  A,  B,  and  C  presented  the  same  quiet  aspect 
as  Second  Avenue ;  groups  of  men  stood  on  the  corners, 
and  now  and  then  a  police-laden  car  was  brought  un 
molested  down  the  tracks  before  them;  they  looked  at 
it  and  talked  together,  and  some  laughed,  but  there  was 
no  trouble. 

March  got  a  cross-town  car,  and  came  back  to  the 
West  Side.  A  policeman,  looking  very  sleepy  and  tired, 
lounged  on  the  platform. 

"  I  suppose  you'll  be  glad  when  this  cruel  war  is 
over,"  March  suggested,  as  he  got  in. 

479 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

The  officer  gave  him  a  surly  glance  and  made  him  no 
answer. 

His  behavior,  from  a  man  born  to  the  joking  give 
and  take  of  our  life,  impressed  March.  It  gave  him  a 
fine  sense  of  the  ferocity  which  he  had  read  of  the 
French  troops  putting  on  toward  the  populace  just  be 
fore  the  coup  d'etat;  he  began  to  feel  like  the  populace ; 
but  he  struggled  with  himself  and  regained  his  char 
acter  of  philosophical  observer.  In  this  character  he 
remained  in  the  car  and  let  it  carry  him  by  the  corner 
where  he  ought  to  have  got  out  and  gone  home,  and 
let  it  keep  on  with  him  to  one  of  the  farthermost  tracks 
westward,  where  so  much  of  the  fighting  was  reported 
to  have  taken  place.  But  everything  on  the  way  was 
as  quiet  as  on  the  East  Side. 

Suddenly  the  car  stopped  with  so  quick  a  turn  of 
the  brake  that  he  was  half  thrown  from  his  seat,  and 
the  policeman  jumped  down  from  the  platform  and  ran 
forward. 


IV 


DRYFOOS  sat  at  breakfast  that  morning  with  Mrs. 
Mandel  as  usual  to  pour  out  his  coifce.  Conrad  had 
already  gone  down-town ;  the  two  girls  lay  abed  much 
later  than  their  father  breakfasted,  and  their  mother 
had  gradually  grown  too  feeble  to  come  down  till  lunch. 
Suddenly  Christine  appeared  at  the  door.  Her  face 
was  white  to  the  edges  of  her  lips,  arid  her  eyes  were 
blazing. 

"  Look  here,  father !  Have  you  been  saying  any 
thing  to  Mr.  Beaton  ?" 

The  old  man  looked  up  at  her  across  his  coffee-cup 
through  his  frowning  brows.  "  No." 

Mrs.  Mandel  dropped  her  eyes,  and  the  spoon  shook 
in  her  hand. 

"  Then  what's  the  reason  he  don't  come  here  any 
more  2"  demanded  the  girl ;  and  her  glance  darted  from 
her  father  to  Mrs.  Mandel.  "  Oh,  it's  you,  is  it?  I'd 
like  to  know  who  told  you  to  meddle  in  other  people's 
business  ?" 

"  I  did,"  said  Dryfoos,  savagely.  "  7  told  her  to 
ask  him  what  he  wanted  here,  and  he  said  he  didn't 
want  anything,  and  he  stopped  coming.  That's  all.  I 
did  it  myself." 

"  Oh,  you  did,  did  you  ?"  said  the  girl,  scarcely  less 
insolently  than  she  had  spoken  to  Mrs.  Mandel.  "  I 
should  like  to  know  what  you  did  it  for  ?  I'd  like  to 
know  what  made  you  think  I  wasn't  able  to  take  care 
of  myself.  I  just  knew  somebody  had  been  meddling, 

481 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

but  I  didn't  suppose  it  was  you.  I  can  manage  my  own 
affairs  in  my  own  way,  if  you  please,  and  I'll  thank 
you  after  this  to  leave  me  to  myself  in  what  don't  con 
cern  you." 

"Don't  concern  me?  You  impudent  jade!"  her 
father  began. 

Christine  advanced  from  the  doorway  toward  the 
table;  she  had  her  hands  closed  upon  what  seemed 
trinkets,  some  of  which  glittered  and  dangled  from 
them.  She  said,  "  Will  you  go  to  him  and  tell  him 
that  this  meddlesome  minx,  here,  had  no  business  to 
say  anything  about  me  to  him,  and  you  take  it  all 
back?" 

"No!"  shouted  the  old  man.     "And  if—" 

"  That's  all  I  want  of  you  /"  the  girl  shouted  in  her 
turn.  "  Here  are  your  presents."  With  both  hands 
she  flung  the  jewels — pins  and  rings  and  earrings  and 
bracelets — among  the  breakfast-dishes,  from  which  some 
of  them  sprang  to  the  floor.  She  stood  a  moment  to 
pull  the  intaglio  ring  from  the  finger  where  Beaton 
put  it  a  year  ago,  and  dashed  that  at  her  father's  plate. 
Then  she  whirled  out  of  the  room,  and  they  heard  her 
running  up-stairs. 

The  old  man  made  a  start  toward  her,  but  he  fell 
back  in  his  chair  before  she  was  gone,  and,  with  a 
fierce,  grinding  movement  of  his  jaws,  controlled  him 
self.  "  Take — take  those  things  up,"  he  gasped  to  Mrs. 
Mandel.  He  seemed  unable  to  rise  again  from  his 
chair;  but  when  she  asked  him  if  he  were  unwell,  ho 
said  no,  with  an  air  of  offence,  and  got  quickly  to  his 
feet.  He  mechanically  picked  up  the  intaglio  ring 
from  the  table  while  he  stood  there,  and  put  it  on 
his  little  finger;  his  hand  was  not  much  bigger  than 
Christine's.  "  How  do  you  suppose  she  found  it  out?" 
he  asked,  after  a  moment. 

482 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  She  seems  to  have  merely  suspected  it,"  said  Mrs. 
.Mandel,  in  a  tremor,  and  with  the  fright  in  her  eyes 
which  Christine's  violence  had  brought  there. 

"Well,  it  don't  make  any  difference.  She  had  to 
know,  somehow,  and  now  she  knows."  He  started 
toward  the  door  of  the  library,  as  if  to  go  into  the 
hall,  where  his  hat  and  coat  hung. 

"Mr.  Dryfoos,"  palpitated  Mrs.  Mandel,  "I  can't 
remain  here,  after  the  language  your  daughter  has  used 
to  me — I  can't  let  you  leave  me — I — I'm  afraid  of 
her— 

"  Lock  yourself  up,  then,"  said  the  old  man,  rudely, 
lie  added,  from  the  hall  before  he  went  out,  "  I  reckon 
she'll  quiet  down  now." 

He  took  the  Elevated  road.  The  strike  seemed  a 
vary  far-off  thing,  though  the  paper  he  bought  to  look 
up  the  stock-market  was  full  of  noisy  typography  about 
yesterday's  troubles  on  the  surface  lines.  Among  the 
millions  in  Wall  Street  there  was  some  joking  and  some 
.swearing,  but  not  much  thinking,  about  the  six  thou 
sand  men  who  had  taken  such  chances  in  their  attempt 
to  better  their  condition.  Dryfoos  heard  nothing  of  the 
strike  in  the  lobby  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  where  he 
spent  two  or  three  hours  watching  a  favorite  stock  of 
his  go  up  and  go  down  under  the  betting.  By  the  time 
the  Exchange  closed  it  had  risen  eight  points,  and  on 
this  and  some  other  investments  he  was  five  thousand 
dollars  richer  than  he  had  been  in  the  morning.  But 
he  had  expected  to  be  richer  still,  and  he  was  by  no 
means  satisfied  with  his  luck.  All  through  the  excite 
ment  of  his  winning  and  losing  had  played  the  dull, 
murderous  rage  he  felt  toward  the  child  who  had  defied 
him,  and  when  the  game  was  over  and  he  started  home 
his  rage  mounted  into  a  sort  of  frenzy ;  lie  would  teach 
her,  he  would  break  her.  He  walked  a  long  way  with- 
32  483 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

<>ut  thinking,  and  then  waited  for  a  car.     2Jone  canu1, 
and  lie  hailed  a  passing  coupe. 

"  What  has  got  all  the  cars'*"  he  demanded  of  the 
driver,  who  jumped  down  from  his  box  to  open  the 
door  for  him  and  get  his  direction. 

"  Been  away  ?"  asked  the  driver.  "  Hasn't  been  any 
car  along  for  a  week.  Strike." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Dryfoos.  He  felt  suddenly  giddy, 
and  he  remained  staring  at  the  driver  after  he  had 
taken  his  seat. 

The  man  asked,  "Where  to?" 

Dryfoos  could  not  think  of  his  street  or  number,  and 
he  said,  with  uncontrollable  fury:  "I  told  you  once! 
Go  up  to  West  Eleventh,  and  drive  along  slow  on  the 
south  side;  I'll  show  you  the  place." 

He  could  not  remember  the  number  of  Every  Other 
We-eJc  office,  where  he  suddenly  decided  to  stop  before 
he  went  home.  He  wished  to  see  Fulkereon,  and  ask 
him  something  about  Beaton:  whether  he  had  been 
about  lately,  and  whether  he  had  dropped  any  hint  of 
what  had  happened  concerning  Christine ;  Dryfoos  be 
lieved  that  Fulkerson  was  in  the  fellow's  confidence. 

There  was  nobody  but  Conrad  in  the  counting-room, 
whither  Dryfoos  returned  after  glancing  into  Fulker- 
son's  empty  office.  "  Where's  Fulkerson  ?"  he  asked, 
sitting  down  with  his  hat  on. 

"  He  went  out  a  few  moments  ago,"  said  Conrad, 
glancing  at  the  clock.  "  I'm  afraid  he  isn't  coming 
back  again  to-day,  if  you  wanted  to  see  him." 

Dryfoos  twisted  his  head  siclewise  and  upward  to  in 
dicate  March's  room.  "  That  other  fellow  out,  too  ?" 

"He  went  just  before  Mr.  Fulkerson,"  answered 
Conrad. 

"  Do  you  generally  knock  off  here  in  the  middle  of 
the  afternoon*"  asked  the.  old  man. 

484 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  No,"  said  Conrad,  as  patiently  as  if  his  father  had 
not  been  there  a  score  of  times  and  found  the  whole 
staff  of  Every  Oilier  Week  at  work  between  four  and 
five.  "  Mr.  March,  you  know,  always  takes  a  good  deal 
of  his  work  home  with  him,  and  I  suppose  Mr.  Ful- 
kerson  went  out  so  early  because  there  isn't  much  doing 
to-day.  Perhaps  it's  the  strike  that  makes  it  dull." 

"  The  strike — yes !  It's  a  pretty  piece  of  business 
to  have  everything  thrown  out  because  a  parcel  of  lazy 
hounds  want  a  chance  to  lay  off  and  get  drunk."  Dry- 
foos  seemed  to  think  Conrad  would  make  some  answer 
to  this,  but  the  young  man's  mild  face  merely  saddened, 
and  he  said  nothing.  "  I've  got  a  coupe  out  there  now 
that  I  had  to  take  because  I  couldn't  get  a  car.  If  I 
had  my  way  I'd  have  a  lot  of  those  vagabonds  hung. 
They're  waiting  to  get  the  city  into  a  snarl,  and  then 
rob  the  houses — pack  of  dirty,  worthless  whelps.  They 
ought  to  call  out  the  militia,  and  fire  into  'em.  Club 
bing  is  too  good  for  them."  Conrad  was  still  silent, 
and  his  father  sneered,  "  But  I  reckon  you  don't  think 
so." 

"  I  think  the  strike  is  useless,"  said  Conrad. 

"  Oh,  you  do,  do  you  ?  Comin'  to  your  senses  a  lit 
tle.  Gettin'  tired  walkin'  so  much.  I  should  like  to 
know  what  your  gentlemen  over  there  on  the  East  Side 
think  about  the  strike,  anyway." 

The  young  fellow  dropped  his  eyes.  "  I  am  not 
authorized  to  speak  for  them." 

"  Oh,  indeed !  And  perhaps  you're  not  authorized 
to  speak  for  yourself?" 

"  Father,  you  know  we  don't  agree  about  these  things. 
I'd  rather  not  talk — " 

"  But  I'm  goin'  to  make  you  talk  this  time !"  cried 
Dryfoos,  striking  the  arm  of  the  chair  he  sat  in  with 
the  side  of  his  fist.  A  maddening  thought  of  Christine 

485 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

came  over  him.  "  As  long  as  you  eat  my  bread,  you 
have  got  to  do  as  I  say.  I  won't  have  my  children 
telling  me  what  I  shall  do  and  sha'n't  do,  or  take  on 
airs  of  being  holier  than  me.  INow,  you  just  speak  up ! 
Do  you  think  those  loafers  are  right,  or  don't  you? 
Come!" 

Conrad  apparently  judged  it  best  to  speak.  "  I 
think  they  were  very  foolish  to  strike — at  this  time, 
when  the  Elevated  roads  can  do  the  work." 

"  Oh,  at  this  time,  heigh !  And  I  suppose  they  think 
over  there  on  the  East  Side  that  it  'd  been  wise  to  strike 
before  we  got  the  Elevated.''7  Conrad  again  refused 
to  answer,  and  his  father  roared,  kk  What  do  you 
think?" 

"  I  think  a  strike  is  always  bad  business.  It's  war ; 
but  sometimes  there  don't  seem  any  other  way  for  the 
working-men  to  get  justice.  They  say  that  sometimes 
strikes  do  raise  the  wages,  after  a  while." 

"  Those  lazy  devils  were  paid  enough  already/' 
shrieked  the  old  man.  "  They  got  two  dollars  a 
day.  How  much  do  you  think  they  ought  to  'a'  got  ? 
Twenty?" 

Conrad  hesitated,  with  a  beseeching  look  at  his 
father.  But  he  decided  to  answer.  "  The  men  say 
that  with  partial  work,  and  fines,  and  other  things, 
they  get  sometimes  a  dollar,  and  sometimes  ninety 
cents  a  day." 

"  They  lie,  and  you  know  they  lie,"  said  his  father, 
rising  and  coming  toward  him.  "  And  what  do  you 
think  the  upshot  of  it  all  will  be,  after  they've  ruined 
business  for  another  week,  and  made  people  hire  hacks, 
and  stolen  the  money  of  honest  men  ?  How  is  it  going 
to  end  ?" 

"  They  will  have  to  give  in." 

"Oh,  give  in,  heigh!  And  what  will  you  say  then, 

486 


A    1IAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

I  should  like  to  know  (  How  will  you  feel  about  it 
then?  Speak!" 

"  I  shall  feel  as  I  do  now.  1  know  you  don't  think 
that  way,  and  I  don't  blame  you — or  anybody.  But  if 
I  have  got  to  say  how  I  shall  feel,  why,  I  shall  feel 
sorry  they  didn't  succeed,  for  I  believe  they  have  a 
righteous  cause,  though  they  go  the  wrong  way  to  help 
themselves." 

His  father  came  close  to  him,  his  eyes  blazing,  his 
teeth  set.  "  Do  you  dare  to  say  that  to  me?" 

"  Yes.  I  can't  help  it.  I  pity  them ;  my  whole 
heart  is  with  those  poor  men." 

"  You  impudent  puppy !"  shouted  the  old  man.  He 
lifted  his  hand  and  struck  his  son  in  the  face.  Conrad 
caught  his  hand  with  his  own  left,  and,  while  the  blood 
began  to  trickle  from  a  wound  that  Christine's  intaglio 
ring  had  made  in  his  temple,  he  looked  at  him  with 
a  kind  of  grieving  wonder,  and  said,  "  Father !" 

The  old  man  wrenched  his  fist  away  and  ran  out  of 
the  house.  He  remembered  his  address  now,  and  he 
gave  it  as  he  plunged  into  the  coupe.  He  trembled 
Avith  his  evil  passion,  and  glared  out  of  the  windows  at 
the  passers  as  he  drove  home;  he  only  saw  Conrad's 
mild,  grieving,  wondering  eyes,  and  the  blood  slowly 
trickling  from  the  wound  in  his  temple. 

Conrad  went  to  the  neat-set  bowl  in  Fulkerson's  com 
fortable  room  and  washed  the  blood  away,  and  kept 
bathing  the  wound  with  the  cold  water  till  it  stopped 
bleeding.  The  cut  was  not  deep,  and  he  thought  he 
would  not  put  anything  on  it.  After  a  while  he  locked 
up  the  office  and  started  out,  he  hardly  knew  where. 
But  he  walked  on,  in  the  direction  he  had  taken,  till 
he  found  himself  in  Union  Square,  on  the  pavement 
in  front  of  Brentano's.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  heard 
some  one  calling  gently  to  him,  "  Mr.  Dryfoos !" 

487 


CONRAD  looked  confusedly  around,  and  the  same 
voice  said  again,  "  Mr.  Dryfoos !"  and  he  saw  that  it 
was  a  lady  speaking  to  him  from  a  coupe  beside  the 
curbing,  and  then  he  saw  that  it  was  Miss  Vance. 

She  smiled  when  he  gave  signs  of  having  discovered 
her,  and  came  up  to  the  door  of  her  carriage.  "  I  am 
so  glad  to  meet  you.  I  have  been  longing  to  talk  to 
somebody ;  nobody  seems  to  feel  about  it  as  I  do.  Oh, 
isn't  it  horrible  ?  Must  they  fail  ?  I  saw  cars  running 
on  all  the  lines  as  I  came  across;  it  made  me  sick  at 
heart.  Must  those  brave  fellows  give  in  ?  And  every 
body  seems  to  hate  them  so — I  can't  bear  it."  Her 
face  was  estranged  with  excitement,  and  there  were 
traces  of  tears  on  it.  "  You  must  think  me  almost 
crazy  to  stop  you  in  the  street  this  way;  but  when  I 
caught  sight  of  you  I  had  to  speak.  I  kneAV  you  would 
sympathize — I  kneAV  you  would  feel  as  I  do.  Oh,  how 
can  anybody  help  honoring  those  poor  men  for  standing 
by  one  another  as  they  do?  They  are  risking  all  they 
have  in  the  world  for  the  sake  of  justice!  Oh,  they 
are  true  heroes!  They  are  staking  the  bread  of  their 
wives  and  children  on  the  dreadful  chance  they've 
taken !  But  no  one  seems  to  understand  it.  No  one 
seems  to  see  that  they  are  willing  to  suffer  more  now 
that  other  poor  men  may  suffer  less  hereafter.  And 
those  wretched  creatures  that  are  coming  in  to  take 
their  places — those  traitors — " 

488 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  We  can't  blame  them  for  wanting  to  earn  a  living, 
Miss  Vance,"  said  Conrad. 

"  No,  no !  I  don't  blame  them.  Who  am  I,  to  do 
such  a  thing?  It's  we — people  like  me,  of  my  class 
—who  make  the  poor  betray  one  another.  But  this 
dreadful  fighting — this  hideous  paper  is  full  of  it!" 
She  held  up  an  extra,  crumpled  with  her  nervous  read 
ing.  "  Can't  something  be  done  to  stop  it  ?  Don't  you 
think  that  if  some  one  went  among  them,  and  tried 
to  make  them  see  how  perfectly  hopeless  it  was  to 
resist  the  companies  and  drive  off  the  new  men,  he 
might  do  some  good  ?  I  have  wanted  to  go  and  try ; 
but  I  am  a  woman,  and  I  mustn't!  I  shouldn't  be 
afraid  of  the  strikers,  but  I'm  afraid  of  what  people 
would  say!"  Conrad  kept  pressing  his  handkerchief 
to  the  cut  in  his  temple,  which  he  thought  might  be 
bleeding,  and  now  she  noticed  this.  "  Are  you  hurt, 
Mr.  Dryfoos?  You  look  so  pale." 

"  No,  it's  nothing — a  little  scratch  I've  got." 

"  Indeed,  you  look  pale.  Have  you  a  carriage  ?  How 
will  you  get  home  ?  Will  you  get  in  here  with  me 
and  let  me  drive  you  ?" 

"  No,  no,"  said  Conrad,  smiling  at  her  excitement. 
"  I'm  perfectly  well—" 

"  And  you  don't  think  I'm  foolish  and  wicked  for 
stopping  you  here  and  talking  in  this  way?  But  I 
know  you  feel  as  I  do!" 

"  Yes,  I  feel  as  you  do.  You  are  right — right  in 
every  way  —  I  mustn't  keep  you—  Good-bye."  He 
stepped  back  to  bow,  but  she  put  her  beautiful  hand  out 
of  the  window7,  and  when  he  took  it  she  wrung  his  hand 
hard. 

"  Thank  you,  thank  you !  You  are  good  and  you 
are  just!  But  no  one  can  do  anything.  It's  useless!" 

The  type  of  irreproachable   coachman   on  the  box 

489 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

whose  respectability  had  suffered  through  the  strange 
behavior  of  his  mistress  in  this  interview  drove  quick 
ly  off  at  her  signal,  and  Conrad  stood  a  moment  look 
ing  after  the  carriage.  His  heart  was  full  of  joy;  it 
leaped ;  he  thought  it  would  burst.  As  he  turned  to 
walk  away  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  mounted  upon 
the  air.  The  trust  she  had  shown  him,  the  praise  she 
had  given  him,  that  crush  of  the  hand:  he  hoped  noth 
ing,  he  formed  no  idea  from  it,  but  it  all  filled  him 
with  love  that  cast  out  the  pain  and  shame  he  had  been 
suffering.  He  believed  that  he  could  never  be  unhappy 
any  more;  the  hardness  that  was  in  his  mind  toward 
his  father  went  out  of  it;  he  saw  how  sorely  he  had 
tried  him;  he  grieved  that  he  had  done  it,  but  the 
means,  the  difference  of  his  feeling  about  the  cause  of 
their  quarrel,  Jie  was  solemnly  glad  of  that  since  she 
.shared  it.  He  was  only  sorry  for  his  father.  "  Poor 
father!"  he  said  under  his  broath  as  he  wont  along. 
He  explained  to  her  about  his  father  in  his  reverie,  and 
she  pitied  his  father,  too. 

He  was  walking  over  toward  the  West  Side,  aim 
lessly  at  first,  and  then  at  times  with  the  longing  to 
do  something  to  save  those  mistaken  men  from  them 
selves  forming  itself  into  a  purpose.  Was  not  that 
what  she  meant  when  she  bewailed  her  woman's  help 
lessness?  She  must  have  wished  him  to  try  if  he, 
being  a  man,  could  not  do  something;  or  if  she  did  not, 
still  he  would  try,  and  if  she  heard  of  it  she  would 
recall  what  she  had  said  and  would  be  glad  he  had 
understood  her  so.  Thinking  of  her  pleasure  in  what 
he  was  going  to  do,  he  forgot  almost  what  it  was ;  but 
when  he  came  to  a  street-car  track  he  remembered  it, 
and  looked  up  and  down  to  see  if  there  were  any  tur 
bulent  gathering  of  men  whom  he  might  mingle  with 
and  help  to  keep  from  violence.  He  saw  none  any- 

490 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

where;  and  then  suddenly,  as  if  at  the  same  moment, 
for  in  his  exalted  mood  all  events  had  a  dream-like 
simultaneity,  he  stood  at  the  corner  of  an  avenue,  and 
in  the  middle  of  it,  a  little  way  off,  was  a  street-car, 
and  around  the  car  a  tumult  of  shouting,  cursing, 
struggling  men.  The  driver  was  lashing  his  horses 
forward,  and  a  policeman  was  at  their  heads,  with  the 
conductor,  pulling  them;  stones,  clubs,  brickbats  hailed 
upon  the  car,  the  horses,  the  men  trying  to  move  them. 
The  mob  closed  upon  them  in  a  body,  and  then  a  patrol- 
wagon  whirled  up  from  the  other  side,  and  a  squad  of 
policemen,  leaped  out  and  began  to  club  the  rioters. 
Conrad  could  see  how  they  struck  them  under  the  rims 
of  their  hats;  the  blows  on  their  skulls  sounded  as  if 
they  had  fallen  on  stone;  the  rioters  ran  in  all  di 
rections. 

One  of  the  officers  rushed  up  toward  the  corner  where 
Conrad  stood,  and  then  he  saw  at  his  side  a  tall,  old 
man,  with  a  long,  white  beard,  who  was  calling  out  at 
the  policemen:  "Ah,  yes!  Glup  the  strikerss — gif  it 
to  them !  Why  don't  you  co  and  glup  the  bresidents 
that  insonlt  your  lawss,  and  gick  your  Boart  of  Ar- 
pidration  out-of-toors  ?  Glup  the  strikerss — they  cot 
no  friendts !  They  cot  no  money  to  pribe  you,  to  dreat 
you!" 

The  officer  lifted  his  club,  and  the  old  man  threw 
his  left  arm  up  to  shield  his  head.  Conrad  recognized 
Lindau,  and  now  he  saw  the  empty  sleeve  dangle  in  the 
air  over  the  stump  of  his  wrist.  He  heard  a  shot  in 
that  turmoil  beside  the  car,  and  something  seemed  to 
strike  him  in  the  breast.  He  was  going  to  say  to  the 
policeman :  "  Don't  strike  him  !  Tie's  an  old  soldier ! 
You  see  he  has  no  hand  !"  but  he  could  not  speak,  he 
could  not  move  his  tongue.  The  policeman  stood  there ; 
he  saw  his  face:  it  was  not  bad,  not  cruel;  it  was  like 

401 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

the  face  of  a  statue,  fixed,  perdurable — a  mere  image 
of  irresponsible  and  involuntary  authority.  Then  Con 
rad  fell  forward,  pierced  through  the  heart  by  that  shot 
fired  from  the  car. 

March  heard  the  shot  as  he  scrambled  out  of  his 
car,  and  at  the  same  moment  he  saw  Lindau  drop  under 
the  club  of  the  policeman,  who  left  him  where  he  fell 
and  joined  the  rest  of  the  squad  in  pursuing  the  rioters. 
The  fighting  round  the  car  in  the  avenue  ceased;  the 
driver  whipped  his  horses  into  a  gallop,  and  the  place 
was  left  empty. 

March  would  have  liked  to  run ;  he  thought  how  his 
wife  had  implored  him  to  keep  away  from  the  rioting; 
but  he  could  not  have  left  Lindau  lying  there  if  he 
would.  Something  stronger  than  his  will  drew  him  to 
the  spot,  and  there  he  saw  Conrad  dead  beside  the  old 
man. 


VI 


IN  the  cares  which  Mrs.  March  shared  with  her  hus 
band  that  night  she  was  supported  partly  by  principle, 
but  mainly  by  the  potent  excitement  which  bewildered 
Conrad's  family  and  took  all  reality  from  what  had 
happened.  It  was  nearly  midnight  when  the  Marches 
left  them  and  walked  away  toward  the  Elevated  station 
with  Eulkerson.  Everything  had  been  done,  by  that 
time,  that  could  be  done ;  and  Eulkerson  was  not  with 
out  that  satisfaction  in  the  business-like  despatch  of  all 
the  details  which  attends  each  step  in  such  an  affair 
and  helps  to  make  death  tolerable  even  to  the  most 
sorely  stricken.  We  are  creatures  of  the  moment;  we 
live  from  one  little  space  to  another ;  and  only  one  in 
terest  at  a  time  fills  these.  Eulkerson  was  cheerful 
when  they  got  into  the  street,  almost  gay;  and  Mrs. 
March  experienced  a  rebound  from  her  depression 
which  she  felt  that  she  ought  not  to  have  experienced. 
But  she  condoned  the  offence  a  little  in  herself,  because 
her  husband  remained  so  constant  in  his  gravity;  and, 
pending  the  final  accounting  he  must  make  her  for 
having  been  where  he  could  be  of  so  much  use  from 
the  first  instant  of  the  calamity,  she  was  tenderly, 
gratefully  proud  of  all  the  use  he  had  been  to  Conrad's 
family,  and  especially  his  miserable  old  father.  To 
her  mind,  March  was  the  principal  actor  in  the  whole 
affair,  and  much  more  important  in  having  seen  it  than 
those  who  had  suffered  in  it.  In  fact,  he  had  suffered 

incomparably. 

493 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW     FORTUNES 

"  Well,  well,"  said  Fulkcrson.  "  They'll  get  along 
now.  We've  done  all  we  could,  and  there's  nothing  left 
but  for  them  to  bear  it.  Of  course  it's  awful,  but  I 
guess  it  '11  come  out  all  right.  I  mean,"  he  added, 
"  they'll  pull  through  now." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  March,  "  that  nothing  is  put  on 
us  that  we  can't  bear.  But  I  should  think,"  he  went 
on,  musingly,  "  that  when  God  sees  what  we  poor  finite 
creatures  can  bear,  hemmed  round  with  this  eternal 
darkness  of  death,  He  must  respect  us." 

"  Basil !"  said  his  wife.  But  in  her  heart  she  drew 
nearer  to  him  for  the  words  she  thought  she  ought  to 
rebuke  him  for. 

"  Oh,  I  know,"  he  said,  "  we  school  ourselves  to 
despise  human  nature.  But  God  did  not  make  us  des 
picable,  and  I  say,  whatever  end  He  meant  us  for,  He 
must  have  some  such  thrill  of  joy  in  our  adequacy  to 
fate  as  a  father  feels  when  his  son  shows  himself  a 
man.  When  I  think  what  we  can  be  if  we  must,  I 
can't  believe  the  least  of  us  shall  finally  perish." 

"  Oh,  I  reckon  the  Almighty  won't  scoop  any  of  us," 
said  Fulkerson,  with  a  piety  of  his  own. 

"  That  poor  boy's  father !"  sighed  Mrs.  March.  "  I 
can't  get  his  face  out  of  my  sight.  He  looked  so  much 
worse  than  death." 

"  Oh,  death  doesn't  look  bad,"  said  March.  "  It's 
life  that  looks  so  in  its  presence.  Death  is  peace  and 
pardon.  I  only  wish  poor  old  Lindau  was  as  well  out 
of  it  as  Conrad  there." 

"  Ah,  Lindau !  He  has  done  harm  enough,"  said 
Mrs.  March.  "  I  hope  he  will  be  careful  after  this." 

March  did  not  try  to  defend  Lindau  against  her 
theory  of  the  case,  which  inexorably  held  him  respon 
sible  for  Conrad's  death. 

"  Lindau's  going  to  come  out  all  right,  I  guess,"  said 

494 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Fulkerson.  "  He  was  first-rate  when  I  saw  him  at  the 
hospital  to-night."  He  whispered  in  March's  ear,  at  a 
chance  he  got  in  mounting  the  station  stairs :  "  I  didn't 
like  to  tell  you  there  at  the  house,  but  I  guess  you'd 
better  know.  They  had  to  take  Lindau's  arm  off  near 
the  shoulder.  Smashed  all  to  pieces  by  the  clubbing." 

In  the  house,  vainly  rich  and  foolishly  unfit  for 
them,  the  bereaved  family  whom  the  Marches  had  just 
left  lingered  together,  and  tried  to  get  strength  to  part 
for  the  night.  They  were  all  spent  with  the  fatigue 
that  comes  from  heaven  to  such  misery  as  theirs,  and 
they  sat  in  a  torpor  in  which  each  waited  for  the  other 
to  move,  to  speak. 

Christine  moved,  and  Mela  spoke.  Christine  rose 
and  went  out  of  the  room  without  saying  a  word,  and 
they  heard  her  going  up-stairs.  Then  Mela  said: 

"  I  reckon  the  rest  of  us  better  be  goun'  too,  father. 
Here,  let's  git  mother  started." 

She  put  her  arm  round  her  mother,  to  lift  her  from 
her  chair,  but  the  old  man  did  not  stir,  and  Mela  called 
Mrs.  Mandel  from  the  next  room.  Between  them  they 
raised  her  to  her  feet. 

"  Ain't  there  anybody  agoin'  to  set  up  with  it  ?" 
she  asked,  in  her  hoarse  pipe.  "  It  appears  like  folks 
hain't  got  any  feelin's  in  N^ew  York.  Woon't  some  o' 
the  neighbors  come  and  offer  to  set  up,  without  waitin' 
to  be  asked  ?" 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right,  mother.  The  men  '11  attend 
to  that.  Don't  you  bother  any,"  Mela  coaxed,  and  she 
kept  her  arm  round  her  mother,  with  tender  patience. 

"  Why,  Mely,  child !  I  can't  feel  right  to  have  it 
left  to  hirelin's  so.  But  there  ain't  anybody  any  more 
to  see  things  done  as  they  ought.  If  Coonrod  was  on'y 
here—" 

"Well,  mother,  you  are  pretty  mixed!"  said  Mela, 

495 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

with  a  strong  tendency  to  break  into  her  large  guffaw. 
But  she  checked  herself  and  said :  "  I  know  just  how 
you  feel,  though.  It  keeps  acomun'  and  agoun' ;  and 
it's  so  and  it  ain't  so,  all  at  once ;  that's  the  plague  of 
it.  Well,  father!  Ain't  you  goun'  to  come?" 

"  I'm  goin'  to  stay,  Mela,"  said  the  old  man,  gently, 
without  moving.  "  Get  your  mother  to  bed,  that's  a 
good  girl." 

"  You  goin'  to  set  up  with  him,  Jacob  ?"  asked  the 
old  woman. 

"  Yes,  'Liz'beth,  I'll  set  up.    You  go  to  bed." 

"  Well,  I  will,  Jacob.  And  I  believe  it  '11  do  you 
good  to  set  up.  I  wished  I  could  set  up  with  you; 
but  I  don't  seem  to  have  the  stren'th  I  did  when  the 
twins  died.  I  must  git  my  sleep,  so's  to — I  don't  like 
very  well  to  have  you  broke  of  your  rest,  Jacob,  but 
there  don't  appear  to  be  anybody  else.  You  wouldn't 
have  to  do  it  if  Coonrod  was  here.  There  I  go  ag'in ! 
Mercy!  mercy!" 

"  Well,  do  come  along,  then,  mother,"  said  Mela ; 
and  she  got  her  out  of  the  room,  with  Mrs.  MandeFs 
help,  and  up  the  stairs. 

From  the  top  the  old  woman  called  down,  "  You  tell 
Coonrod—  She  stopped,  and  he  heard  her  groan  out, 
"  My  Lord !  my  Lord  !" 

He  sat,  one  silence  in  the  dining-room,  where  they 
had  all  lingered  together,  and  in  the  library  beyond  the 
hireling  watcher  sat,  another  silence.  The  time  passed, 
but  neither  moved,  and  the  last  noise  in  the  house 
ceased,  so  that  they  heard  each  other  breathe,  and  the 
vague,  remote  rumor  of  the  city  invaded  the  inner  still 
ness.  It  grew  louder  toward  morning,  and  then  Dry- 
foos  knew  from  the  watcher's  deeper  breathing  that  he 
had  fallen  into  a  doze. 

He  crept  by  him  to  the  drawing-room,  where  his  son 

496 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

was;  the  place  was  full  of  the  awful  sweetness  of  the 
flowers  that  Fulkersori  had  brought,  and  that  lay  above 
the  pulseless  breast.  The  old  man  turned  up  a  burner 
in  the  chandelier,  and  stood  looking  on  the  majestic 
serenity  of  the  dead  face. 

He  could  not  move  when  he  saw  his  wife  coming 
down  the  stairway  in  the  hall.  She  was  in  her  long, 
white  flannel  bed  gown,  and  the  candle  she  carried  shook 
with  her  nervous  tremor.  He  thought  she  might  be 
walking  in  her  sleep,  but  she  said,  quite  simply,  "  I 
Avoke  up,  and  I  couldn't  git  to  sleep  ag'in  without 
comin'  to  have  a  look."  She  stood  beside  their  dead 
son  with  him.  "  Well,  he's  beautiful,  Jacob.  He  was 
the  prettiest  baby !  And  he  was  always  good,  Coonrod 
was;  I'll  say  that  for  him.  I  don't  believe  he  ever 
give  me  a  minute's  care  in  his  whole  life.  I  reckon 
I  liked  him  about  the  best  of  all  the  children;  but  I 
don't  know  as  T  ever  done  much  to  show  it.  But  you 
was  always  good  to  him,  Jacob;  you  always  done  the 
best  for  him,  ever  since  he  was  a  little  feller.  I  used 
to  be  afraid  you'd  spoil  him  sometimes  in  them  days ; 
but  I  guess  you're  glad  now  for  every  time  you  didn't 
cross  him.  I  don't  suppose  since  the  twins  died  you 
ever  hit  him  a  lick."  She  stooped  and  peered  closer  at 
the  face.  "  Why,  Jacob,  what's  that  there  by  his  pore 
eye  ?" 

Dryfoos  saw  it,  too,  the  wound  that  he  had  feared 
to  look  for,  and  that  now  seemed  to  redden  on  his  sight. 
He  broke  into  a  low,  wavering  cry,  like  a  child's  in 
despair,  like  an  animal's  in  terror,  like  a  soul's  in  the 
anguish  of  remorse. 


VII 


THE  evening  after  the  funeral,  while  the  Marches 
sat  together  talking  it  over,  and  making  approaches, 
through  its  shadow,  to  the  question  of  their  own  future, 
which  it  involved,  they  were  startled  by  the  twitter  of 
the  electric  bell  at  their  apartment  door.  It  was  really 
not  so  late  as  the  children's  having  gone  to  bed  made- 
it  seem;  but  at  nine  o'clock  it  was  too  late  for  any 
probable  visitor  except  Fulkerson.  It  might  be  he,  and 
March  was  glad  to  postpone  the  impending  question  to 
his  curiosity  concerning  the  immediate  business  Eul- 
kerson  might  have  with  him.  He  went  himself  to  the 
door,  and  confronted  there  a  lady  deeply  veiled  in  black 
and  attended  by  a  very  decorous  serving-woman. 

"  Are  you  alone,  Mr.  March — you  and  Mrs.  March  2" 
asked  the  lady,  behind  her  veil ;  and,  as  he  hesitated,  she 
said :  "  You  don't  know  me !  Miss  Vance  " ;  and  she 
threw  back  her  veil,  showing  her  face  wan  and  agitated 
in  the  dark  folds.  "  I  am  very  anxious  to  see  you — 
to  speak  with  you  both.  May  I  come  in  ?" 

"  Why,  certainly,  Miss  Vance,"  he  answered,  still 
too  much  stupefied  by  her  presence  to  realize  itv 

She  promptly  entered,  and  saying,  with  a  glance  at 
the  hall  chair  by  the  door,  "  My  maid  can  sit  here  2" 
followed  him  to  the  room  where  he  had  left  his  wife. 

Mrs.  March  showed  herself  more  capable  of  coping 
with  the  fact.  She  welcomed  Miss  Vance  with  the 
liking  they  both  felt  for  the  girl,  and  with  the  syni- 

p'athy  which  her  troubled  face  inspired. 

498 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  won't  tire  you  with  excuses  for  coming,  Mrs. 
March,"  she  said,  "  for  it  was  the  only  thing  left  for 
me  to  do;  and  I  come  at  my  aunt's  suggestion."  She 
added  this  as  if  it  would  help  to  account  for  her  more 
on  the  conventional  plane,  and  she  had  the  instinctive 
good  taste  to  address  herself  throughout  to  Mrs.  March 
as  much  as  possible,  though  what  she  had  to  say  was 
mainly  for  March.  "  I  don't  know  how  to  begin — I 
don't  know  how  to  speak  of  this  terrible  affair.  But 
you  know  what  I  mean.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  lived  a 
whole  lifetime  since  it — happened.  I  don't  want  you 
to  pity  me  for  it,"  she  said,  forestalling  a  politeness 
from  Mrs.  March.  "  I'm  the  last  one  to  be  thought  of, 
and  you  mustn't  mind  me  if  I  try  to  make  you.  I  caine 
to  find  out  all  of  the  truth  that  I  can,  and  when  I  know 
just  what  that  is  I  shall  know  what  to  do.  I  have  read 
the  inquest ;  it's  all  burned  into  my  brain.  But  I  don't 
care  for  that — for  myself:  you  must  let  me  say  such 
things  without  minding  me.  I  know  that  your  hus 
band — that  Mr.  March  was  there ;  I  read  his  testimony ; 
and  I  wished  to  ask  him — to  ask  him—  She  stopped 
and  looked  distractedly  about.  "  But  what  folly !  He 
must  have  said  everything  he  knew — he  had  to."  Her 
eyes  Avandercd  to  him  from  his  wife,  on  whom  she  had 
kept  them  with  instinctive  tact. 

"  I  said  everything — yes,"  he  replied.  "  But  if  you 
would  like  to  know — 

"  Perhaps  I  had  better  tell  you  something  first.  I 
had  just  parted  with  him — it  couldn't  have  been  more 
than  half  an  hour — in  front  of  Brentano's;  he  must 
have  gone  straight  to  his  death.  We  were  talking,  and 
I — I  said,  Why  didn't  some  one  go  among  the  strikers 
and  plead  with  them  to  be  peaceable,  and  keep  them 
from  attacking  the  new  men.  I  knew  that  he  felt  as 
I  did  about  the  strikers ;  that  he  was  their  friend.  Did 
33  499 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

you  see — do  you  know  anything  that  makes  you  think 
lie  had  heen  trying  to  do  that?" 

"  I  am  sorry/7  March  began,  "  I  didn't  see  him  at  all 
till — till  I  saw  him  lying  dead." 

"  My  husband  was  there  purely  by  accident/'  Mrs. 
March  put  in.  "  I  had  begged  and  entreated  him  not 
to  go  near  the  striking  anywhere*  And  he  had  just 
got  out  of  the  car,  and  saw  the  policeman  strike  that 
wretched  Lindau — he's  been  such  an  anxiety  to  me  ever 
since  we  have  had  anything  to  do  with  him  here;  my 
husband  knew  him  when  he  was  a  boy  in  the  West. 
Mr.  March  came  home  from  it  all  perfectly  prostrated ; 
it  made  us  all  sick  !  Nothing  so  horrible  ever  came  into 
our  lives  before.  I  assure  you  it  was  the  most  shocking 
experience." 

Miss  Vance  listened  to  her  with  that  look  of  patience 
which  those  who  have  seen  much  of  the  real  suffering 
of  the  world — the  daily  portion  of  the  poor — have  for 
the  nervous  woes  of  comfortable  people.  March  hung 
his  head ;  he  knew  it  would  be  useless  to  protest  that 
his  share  of  the  calamity  was,  by  comparison,  in- 
nnitesimally  small. 

After  she  had  heard  Mrs.  March  to  the  end  even  of 
her  repetitions,  Miss  Vance  said,  as  if  it  were  a  mere 
matter  of  course  that  she  should  have  looked  the  affair 
up,  "  Yes,  I  have  seen  Mr.  Lindau  at  the  hospital — " 

"  My  husband  goes  every  day  to  see  him,"  Mrs. 
March  interrupted,  to  give  a  final  touch,  to  the  con 
ception  of  March's  magnanimity  throughout. 

"  The  poor  man  seems  to  have  been  in  the  wrong  at 
the  time,"  said  Miss  Vance. 

"  I  could  almost  say  he  had  earned  the  right  to  be 
wrong.  He's  a  man  of  the  most  generous  instincts,  and 
a  high  ideal  of  justice,  of  equity — too  high  to  be  con 
sidered  by  a  policeman  with  a  club  in  his  hand,"  said 

500 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

March,  with  a  bold  defiance  of  his  wife's  different  opin 
ion  of  Lindau.  "  It's  the  policeman's  business,  I  sup 
pose,  to  club  the  ideal  when  he  finds  it  inciting  a  riot." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  blame  Mr.  Lindau ;  I  don't  blame  the 
policeman;  he  was  as  much  a  mere  instrument  as  his 
club  was.  I  am  only  trying  to  find  out  how  much  I 
am  to  blame  myself.  I  had  no  thought  of  Mr.  Dry- 
foos's  going  there — of  his  attempting  to  talk  with  the 
strikers  and  keep  them  quiet;  I  was  only  thinking,  as 
women  do,  of  what  I  should  try  to  do  if  I  were  a  man. 
But  perhaps  he  understood  me  to  ask  him  to  go — per 
haps  my  words  sent  him  to  his  death." 

She  had  a  sort  of  calm  in  her  courage  to  know  the 
worst  truth  as  to  her  responsibility  that  forbade  any 
wish  to  flatter  her  out  of  it.  "  I'm  afraid,"  said  March, 
"  that  is  what  can  never  be  known  now."  After  a 
moment  he  added :  "  But  why  should  you  wish  to 
know?  If  he  went  there  as  a  peacemaker,  he  died  in 
a  good  cause,  in  such  a  way  as  he  would  wish  to  die, 
I  believe." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  girl ;  "  I  have  thought  of  that.  But 
death  is  awful ;  we  must  not  think  patiently,  forgiving 
ly  of  sending  any  one  to  their  death  in  the  best  cause." 

"  I  fancy  life  was  an  awful  thing  to  Conrad  Dry- 
foos,"  March  replied.  "  He  was  thwarted  and  disap 
pointed,  without  even  pleasing  the  ambition  that  thwart 
ed  and  disappointed  him.  That  poor  old  man,  his 
father,  warped  him  from  his  simple,  lifelong  wish  to 
be  a  minister,  and  was  trying  to  make  a  business  man 
of  him.  If  it  will  be  any  consolation  to  you  to  know  it, 
Miss  Vance,  I  can  assure  you  that  he  was  very  un 
happy,  and  I  don't  see  how  he  could  ever  have  been 
happy  here." 

"  It  won't,"  said  the  girl,  steadily.  "  If  people  are 
born  into  this  world,  it's  because  they  were  meant  to 

501 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

live  in  it.  It  isn't  a  question  of  being  happy  here ;  no 
one  is  happy,  in  that  old,  selfish  way,  or  can  be;  but 
he  could  have  been  of  great  use." 

"  Perhaps  he  was  of  use  in  dying.  Who  knows  ?  He 
may  have  been  trying  to  silence  Lindau." 

"  Oh,  Lindau  wasn't  worth  it !"  cried  Mrs.  March. 

Miss  Vance  looked  at  her  as  if  she  did  not  quite 
understand.  Then  she  turned  to  March.  "  He  might 
have  been  unhappy,  as  we  all  are ;  but  I  know  that  his 
life  here  would  have  had  a  higher  happiness  than  we 
wish  for  or  aim  for."  The  tears  began  to  run  silently 
down  her  cheeks. 

"  He  looked  strangely  happy  that  day  when  he  left 
me.  He  had  hurt  himself  somehow,  and  his  face  was 
bleeding  from  a  scratch ;  he  kept  his  handkerchief  up ; 
he  was  pale,  but  such  a  light  came  into  his  face  when 
he  shook  hands — ah,  I  know  he  went  to  try  and  do  what 
I  said!"  They  were  all  silent,  while  she  dried  her 
eyes  and  then  put  her  handkerchief  back  into  the  pocket 
from  which  she  had  suddenly  pulled  it,  with  a  series  of 
vivid,  young-ladyish  gestures,  which  struck  March  by 
their  incongruity  with  the  occasion  of  their  talk,  and 
yet  by  their  harmony  with  the  rest  of  her  elegance.  "  I 
am  sorry,  Miss  Vance,"  he  began,  "  that  I  can't  really 
tell  you  anything  more — " 

"  You  are  very  kind,"  she  said,  controlling  herself 
and  rising  quickly.  "  I  thank  you — thank  you  both 
very  much."  She  turned  to  Mrs.  March  and  shook 
hands  with  her  and  then  with  him.  "  I  might  have 
known — I  did  know  that  there  wasn't  anything  more 
for  you  to  tell.  But  at  least  I've  found  out  from  you 
that  there  was  nothing,  and  now  I  can  begin  to  bear 
what  I  must.  How  are  those  poor  creatures  —  his 
mother  and  father,  his  sisters  ?  Some  day,  I  hope,  I 
shall  be  ashamed  to  have  postponed  them  to  the  thought 

502 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

of  myself;  but  I  can't  pretend  to  be  yet.  I  could  not 
come  to  the  funeral ;  I  wanted  to." 

She  addressed  her  question  to  Airs.  March,  who  an 
swered  :  "  I  can  understand.  But  they  were  pleased 
with  the  flowers  you  sent;  people  are,  at  such  times, 
and  they  haven't  many  friends." 

"  Would  you  go  to  see  them  ?"  asked  the  girl. 
"  Would  you  tell  them  what  I've  told  you  ?" 

Mrs.  March  looked  at  her  husband. 

"  I  don't  see  what  good  it  would  do.  They  wouldn't 
understand.  But  if  it  would  relieve  you— 

"  I'll  wait  till  it  isn't  a  question  of  self-relief,"  said 
the  girl.  "  Good-bye !" 

She  left  them  to  long  debate  of  the  event.  At  the 
end  Mrs.  March  said,  "  She  is  a  strange  being ;  such 
a  mixture  of  the  society  girl  and  the  saint." 

Her  husband  answered :  "  She's  the  potentiality  of 
several  kinds  of  fanatic.  She's  very  unhappy,  and  I 
don't  see  how  she's  to  be  happier  about  that  poor  fellow. 
I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  she  did  inspire  him  to  at 
tempt  something  of  that  kind." 

"  Well,  you  got  out  of  it  very  well,  Basil.  I  ad 
mired  the  way  you  managed.  I  was  afraid  you'd  say 
something  awkward." 

"  Oh,  with  a  plain  line  of  truth  before  me,  as  the 
only  possible  thing,  I  can  get  on  pretty  well.  When 
it  comes  to  anything  decorative,  I'd  rather  leave  it  to 
you,  Isabel." 

She  seemed  insensible  of  his  jest.  "  Of  course,  he 
was  in  love  with  her.  That  was  the  light  that  came 
into  his  face  when  he  was  going  to  do  what  he  thought 
she  wanted  him  to  do." 

"  And  she — do  you  think  that  she  was. — " 

"  What   an    idea !      It   would    have    been    perfectly 

grotesque !" 

503 


VIII 

THEIR  affliction  brought  the  Dryfooses  into  humarier 
relations  with  the  Marches,  who  had  hitherto  regarded 
them  as  a  necessary  evil,  as  the  odious  means  of  their 
own  prosperity.  Mrs.  March  found  that  the  women  of 
the  family  seemed  glad  of  her  coming,  and  in  the  sense 
of  her  usefulness  to  them  all  she  began  to  feel  a  kind 
ness  even  for  Christine.  But  she  could  not  help  see 
ing  that  between  the  girl  and  her  father  there  was  an 
unsettled  account,  somehow,  and  that  it  was  Christine 
and  not  the  old  man  who  was  holding  out.  She  thought 
that  their  sorrow  had  tended  to  refine  the  others.  Mela 
was  much  more  subdued,  and,  except  when  she  aban 
doned  herself  to  a  childish  interest  in  her  mourning, 
she  did  nothing  to  shock  Mrs.  March's  taste  or  to  seem 
unworthy  of  her  grief.  She  was  very  good  to  her 
mother,  whom  the  blow  had  left  unchanged,  and  to 
her  father,  whom  it  had  apparently  fallen  upon  witli 
crushing  weight.  Once,  after  visiting  their  house,  Mrs. 
March  described  to  March  a  little  scene  between  Dry- 
foos  and  Mela,  when  he  came  home  from  Wall  Street, 
and  the  girl  met  him  at  the  door  with  a  kind  of  country 
simpleness,  and  took  his  hat  and  stick,  and  brought  him 
into  the  room  where  Mrs.  March  sat,  looking  tired  and 
broken. 

She  found  this  look  of  Dryfoos's  pathetic,  and  dwelt 
on  the  sort  of  stupefaction  there  was  in  it ;  he  must  have 
loved  his  son  more  than  they  ever  realized.  "  Yes," 

504 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

said  March,  "  I  suspect  he  did.  He's  never  heen  about 
the  place  since  that  day ;  he  was  always  dropping  in 
before,  on  his  way  up-town.  lie  seems  to  go  down  to 
Wall  Street  every  day,  just  as  before,  but  I  suppose 
that's  mechanical ;  he  wouldn't  know  what  else  to  do ; 
I  dare  say  it's  best  for  him.  The  sanguine  Fulkerson 
is  getting  a  little  anxious  about  the  future  of  Ercry 
Other  Week.  Now  Conrad's  gone,  he  isn't  sure  the 
old  man  will  want  to  keep  on  with  it,  or  whether  he'll 
have  to  look  up  another  Angel.  lie  wants  to  get  mar 
ried,  I  imagine,  and  he  can't  venture  till  this  point  is 
settled." 

"  It's  a  very  material  point  to  us,  too,  Basil/'  said 
Mrs.  March. 

"  Well,  of  course.  I  hadn't  overlooked  that,  you 
may  be  sure.  One  of  the  things  that  Fulkerson  and 
I  have  discussed  is  a  scheme  for  buying  the  maga 
zine.  Its  success  is  pretty  well  assured  now,  and  I 
shouldn't  be  afraid  to  put  money  into  it — if  I  had 
the  money." 

"  I  couldn't  let  you  sell  the  house  in  Boston,  Basil !" 

"  And  I  don't  want  to.  I  wish  we  could  go  back 
and  live  in  it  and  get  the  rent,  too!  It  would  be  quite 
a  support.  But  I  suppose  if  Dryfoos  won't  keep  on, 
it  must  come  to  another  Angel.  I  hope  it  won't  be  a 
literary  one,  with  a  fancy  for  running  my  department." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  whoever  takes  the  magazine  will  be 
glad  enough  to  keep  you !" 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  Well,  perhaps.  But  I  don't 
believe  Fulkerson  would  let  me  stand  long  between 
him  and  an  Angel  of  the  right  description." 

"  Well,  then,  I  believe  he  would.  And  you've  never 
seen  anything,  Basil,  to  make  you  really  think  that  Mr. 
Fulkerson  didn't  appreciate  you  to  the  utmost." 

"  I  think  I  earao  pretty  near  an  undervaluation  in 

505 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

that  Lindau  trouble.  I  shall  always  wonder  what  put 
a  backbone  into  Fulkerson  just  at  that  crisis.  Fulker- 
son  doesn't  strike  me  as  the  stuff  of  a  moral  hero." 

"  At  any  rate,  he  was  one,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  and 
that's  quite  enough  for  me." 

March  did  not  answer.  "  What  a  noble  thing  life 
is,  anyway !  Here  I  am,  well  on  the  way  to  fifty,  after 
twenty-five  years  of  hard  work,  looking  forward  to  the 
potential  poor-house  as  confidently  as  I  did  in  youth. 
We  might  have  saved  a  little  more  than  we  have  saved ; 
but  the  little  more  wouldn't  avail  if  I  were  turned  out 
of  my  place  now ;  and  we  should  have  lived  sordidly  to 
no  purpose.  Some  one  always  has  you  by  the  throat, 
unless  you  have  some  one  else  in  your  grip.  I  wonder 
if  that's  the  attitude  the  Almighty  intended  His  respect 
able  creatures  to  take  toward  one  another!  I  wonder 
if  He  meant  our  civilization,  the  battle  we  fight  in,  the 
game  we  trick  in!  I  wonder  if  He  considers  it  final, 
and  if  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth,  which  we  pray 
for—" 

"  Have  you  seen  Lindau  to-day  ?"  Mrs.  March  askod. 

"  You  inferred  it  from  the  quality  of  my  piety  ?" 
March  laughed,  and  then  suddenly  sobered.  "  Yes,  I 
paw  him.  It's  going  rather  hard  with  him,  I'm  afraid. 
The  amputation  doesn't  heal  very  well;  the  shock  was 
very  great,  and  he's  old.  It  '11  take  time.  There's  so 
much  pain  that  they  have  to  keep  him  under  opiates, 
and  I  don't  think  he  fully  knew  me.  At  any  rate,  I 
didn't  get  my  piety  from  him  to-day." 

"  It's  horrible !  Horrible !"  said  Mrs.  March.  "  I 
can't  get  over  it!  After  losing  his  hand  in  the  war, 
to  lose  his  whole  arm  now  in  this  way!  It  does  seem 
too  cruel !  Of  course  he  oughtn't  to  have  been  there ; 
we  can  say  that.  But  you  oughtn't  to  have  been  there, 
either,  Basil." 

506 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Well,  I  wasn't  exactly  advising  the  police  to  go 
and  club  the  railroad  presidents." 

"  Neither  was  poor  Conrad  Dryfoos." 

"  I  don't  deny  it.  All  that  was  distinctly  the  chance 
of  life  and  death.  That  belonged  to  God  ;  and  no  doubt 
it  was  law,  though  it  seems  chance.  But  what  I  object 
to  is  this  economic  chance-world  in  which  we  live,  and 
which  we  men  seem  to  have  created.  It  ought  to  be 
law  as  inflexible  in  human  affairs  as  the  order  of  day 
and  night  in  the  physical  world  that  if  a  man  will 
work  he  shall  both  rest  and  oat,  and  shall  not  be  har 
assed  with  any  question  as  to  how  his  repose  and  his 
provision  shall  come.  Nothing  less  ideal  than  this  satis 
fies  the  reason.  But  in  our  state  of  things  no  one  js 
secure  of  this.  No  one  is  sure  of  finding  wrork ;  no  one 
is  sure  of  not  losing  it.  I  may  have  my  work  taken 
away  from  me  at  any  moment  by  the  caprice,  the  mood, 
the  indigestion  of  a  man  who  has  not  the  qualification 
for  knowing  whether  I  do  it  well  or  ill. ,  At  my  time 
of  life — at  every  time  of  life — a  man  ought  to  feel  that 
if  he  will  keep  on  doing  his  duty  he  shall  not  suffer 
in  himself  or  in  those  who  are  dear  to  him,  except  I 
through  natural  causes.  But  no  man  can  feel  this  a&J 
things  are  now ;  and  so  we  go  on,  pushing  and  pulling, 
climbing  and  crawling,  thrusting  aside  and  trampling 
underfoot;  lying,  cheating,  stealing;  and  when  we  get 
to  the  end,  covered  with  blood  and  dirt  and  sin  and 
shame,  and  look  back  over  the  way  we've  come  to  a 
palace  of  our  own,  or  the  poor-house,  which  is  about 
the  only  possession  we  can  claim  in  common  wTith  our 
brother-men,  I  don't  think  the  retrospect  can  be  pleas- 
ing." 

"  I  know,  I  know !"  said  his  wife.    "  I  think  of  those 
things,  too,  Basil.     Life  isn't  what  it  seems  when  you 

look  forward  to  it.     But  I  think  people  would  suffer 

507 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

less,  and  wouldn't  have  to  work  so  hard,  and  could  make 
all  reasonable  provision  for  the  future,  if  they  were  not 
so  greedy  and  so  foolish." 

"  Oh,  without  doubt !  We  can't  put  it  all  on  the 
conditions;  we  must  put  some  of  the  blame  on  char 
acter.  But  conditions  make  character;  and  people  are 
greedy  and  foolish,  and  wish  to  have  and  to  shine,  be 
cause  having  and  shining  are  held  up  to  them  by  civil 
ization  as  the  chief  good  of  life.  We  all  know  they  are 
not  the  chief  good,  perhaps  not  good  at  all ;  but  if  some 
one  ventures  to  say  so,  all  the  rest  of  us  call  him  a 
fraud  and  a  crank,  and  go  moiling  and  toiling  on  to 
the  palace  or  the  poor-house.  We  can't  help  it.  If  one 
were  less  greedy  or  less  foolish,  some  one  else  would 
have  and  would  shine  at  his  expense.  We  don't  moil 
and  toil  to  ourselves  alone ;  the  palace  or  the  poor-house 
is  not  merely  for  ourselves,  but  for  our  children,  whom 
we've  brought  up  in  the  superstition  that  having  and 
shining  is  the  chief  good.  We  dare  not  teach  them 
otherwise,  for  fear  they  may  falter  in  the  fight  when 
it  comes  their  turn,  and  the  children  of  others  will 
crowd  them  out  of  the  palace  into  the  poor-house.  If 
we  felt  sure 'that  honest  work  shared  by  all  would  bring 
them  honest  food  shared  by  all,  some  heroic  few  of  us, 
who  did  not  wish  our  children  to  rise  above  their  fel 
lows — though1  we  could  not  bear  to  have  them  fall  be- 
low; — might  trust  them  with  the  truth.  But  we  have 
no  such  assurance,  and  so  we  go  on  trembling  before 
Dryfooses  and  living  in  gimcrackeries." 

"  Basil,  Basil !  I  was  always  willing  to  live  more 
simply  than  you.  You  know  I  was !" 

"  I  know  you  always  said  so,  my  dear.  But  how 
many  bell-ratchets  and  speaking-tubes  would  you  be 
willing  to  have  at  the  street  door  below  ?  I  remember 
that  when  we  were  looking  for  a  flat  you  rejected  every 

508 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

building  that  had  a  bell-ratchet  or  a  speaking-tube,  and 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  any  that  had  more  than 
an  electric  button ;  you  wanted  a  hall-boy,  with  electric 
buttons  all  over  him.  I  don't  blame  you.  I  find  such 
things  quite  as  necessary  as  you  do." 

"  And  do  you  mean  to  say,  Basil,"  she  asked,  aban 
doning  this  unprofitable  branch  of  the  inquiry,  "  that 
you  are  really  uneasy  about  your  place?  that  you  are 
afraid  Mr.  Dryfoos  may  give  up  being  an  Angel,  and 
Mr.  Fulkerson  may  play  you  false  ?" 

"  Play  me  false  ?  Oh,  it  wouldn't  be  playing  me 
false.  It  would  be  merely  looking  out  for  himself,  if 
the  new  Angel  had  editorial  tastes  and  wanted  my 
place.  It's  what  any  one  would  do." 

"  You  wouldn't  do  it,  Basil !" 

''  Wouldn't  I  ?  Well,  if  any  one  offered  me  more 
salary  than  Every  Other  Week  pays  —  say,  twice  as 
much  —  what  do  you  think  my  duty  to  my  suffering 
family  would  be?  It's  give  and  take  in  the  business 
world,  Isabel ;  especially  take.  But  as  to  being  uneasy, 
I'm  not,  in  the  least.  I've  the  spirit  of  a  lion,  when 
it  comes  to  such  a  chance  as  that.  When  I  see  how 
readily  the  sensibilities  of  the  passing  stranger  can  be 
worked  in  New  York,  I  think  of  taking  up  the  role 
of  that  desperate  man  on  Third  Avenue  who  went 
along  looking  for  garbage  in  the  gutter  to  eat.  I  think 
I  could  pick  up  at  least  twenty  or  thirty  cents  a  day  by 
that  little  game,  and  maintain  my  family  in  the  af 
fluence  it's  been  accustomed  to." 

ff  Basil !"  cried  his  wife.  "  You  don't  mean  to  say 
that  man  was  an  impostor !  And  I've  gone  about,  ever 
since,  feeling  that  one  such  case  in  a  million,  the  bare 
possibility  of  it,  was  enough  to  justify  all  that  Lindau 
said  about  the  rich  and  the  poor !" 

March  laughed  teasingly.     "  Oh,  I  don't  say  he  was 
"509 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

an  impostor.  Perhaps  he  really  was  hungry ;  but,  if  he 
wasn't,  what  do  you  think  of  a  civilization  that  makes 
the  opportunity  of  such  a  fraud  3  that  gives  us  all  such 
a  bad  conscience  for  the  need  which  is  that  we  weaken 
to  the  need  that  isn't  ?  Suppose  that  poor  fellow  wasn't 
personally  founded  on  fact:  nevertheless,  he  represent 
ed  the  truth ;  he  was  the  ideal  of  the  suffering  which 
would  be  less  effective  if  realistically  treated.  That 
man  is  a  great  comfort  to  me.  He  probably  rioted  for 
days  on  that  quarter  I  gave  him ;  made  a  dinner  very 
likely,  or  a  champagne  supper;  and  if  Every  Other 
Week  wants  to  get  rid  of  me,  I  intend  to  work  that 
racket.  You  can  hang  round  the  corner  with  Bella, 
and  Tom  can  come  up  to  me  in  tears,  at  stated  inter 
vals,  and  ask  me  if  I've  found  anything  yet.  To  be 
sure,  we  might  be  arrested  and  sent  up  somewhere. 
But  even  in  that  extreme  case  we  should  be  provided 
for.  Oh  no,  I'm  not  afraid  of  losing  my  place!  I've 
merely  a  sort  of  psychological  curiosity  to  know  how 
men  like  Dryfoos  and  Fulkerson  will  work  out  the 
problem  before  them." 


IX 


IT  was  a  curiosity  which  Fulkerson  himself  shared, 
at  least  concerning  Dryfoos.  "  I  don't  know  what  the 
old  man's  going  to  do,"  he  said  to  March  the  day  after 
the  Marches  had  talked  their  future  over.  "  Said  any 
thing  to  you  yet  ?" 

"  No,  not  a  word." 

"  You're  anxious,  I  suppose,  same  as  I  am.  Fact 
is,"  said  Fulkerson,  blushing  a  little,  "  I  can't  ask  to 
have  a  day  named  till  I  know  where  I  am  in  connection 
with  the  old  man.  I  can't  tell  whether  I've  got  to  look 
out  for  something  else  or  somebody  else.  Of  course, 
it's  full  soon  yet." 

"  Yes,"  March  said,  "  much  sooner  than  it  seems  to 
us.  We're  so  anxious  about  the  future  that  we  don't 
remember  how  very  recent  the  past  is." 

"  That's  something  so.  The  old  man's  hardly  had 
time  yet  to  pull  himself  together.  Well,  I'm  glad  you 
feel  that  way  about  it,  March.  I  guess  it's  more  of  a 
blow  to  him  than  we  realize.  He  was  a  good  deal  bound 
up  in  Coonrod,  though  he  didn't  always  use  him  very 
well.  Well,  I  reckon  it's  apt  to  happen  so  oftentimes; 
curious  how  cruel  love  can  be.  Heigh  ?  We're  an 
awful  mixture,  March !" 

"  Yes,  that's  the  marvel  and  the  curse,  as  Browning 
says." 

u  Why,  that  poor  boy  himself,"  pursued  Fulkerson, 

"  had  streaks  of  the  mule  in  him  that  could  give  odds 

511 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

to  Beaton,  and  he  must  have  tried  the  old  man  by  the 
way  he  would  give  in  to  his  will  and  hold  out  against 
his  judgment.  I  don't  believe  he  ever  budged  a  hair's- 
breadth  from  his  original  position  about  wanting  to  be 
a  preacher  and  not  wanting  to  be  a  business  man.  Well, 
of  course!  I  don't  think  business  is  all  in  all;  but  it 
must  have  made  the  old  man  mad  to  find  that  without 
saying  anything,  or  doing  anything  to  show  it,  and 
after  seeming  to  come  over  to  his  ground,  and  really 
coming,  practically,  Coonrod  was  just  exactly  where  he 
first  planted  himself,  every  time." 

"  Yes,  people  that  have  convictions  are  difficult. 
Fortunately,  they're  rare." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  everybody's 
got  convictions.  Beaton  himself,  who  hasn't  a  principle 
to  throw  at  a  dog,  has  got  convictions  the  size  of  a  barn. 
They  ain't  always  the  same  ones,  I  know,  but  they're 
always  to  the  same  effect,  as  far  as  Beaton's  being  dum 
ber  One  is  concerned.  The  old  man's  got  convictions 
— or  did  have,  unless  this  thing  lately  has  shaken  him 
all  up — and  he  believes  that  money  will  do  everything. 
Colonel  Woodburn's  got  convictions  that  he  wouldn't 
part  with  for  untold  millions.  Why,  March,  you  got 
convictions  yourself !" 

"  Have  I  ?"  said  March.  "  I  don't  know  what  they 
are." 

"  Well,  neither  do  I ;  but  I  know  you  were  ready 
to  kick  the  trough  over  for  them  when  the  old  man 
wanted  us  to  bounce  Lindau  that  time." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  March ;  he  remembered  the  fact ;  but 
he  was  still  uncertain  just  what  the  convictions  were 
that  he  had  been  so  stanch  for. 

"  I  suppose  we  could  have  got  along  without  you," 
Fulkerson  mused  aloud.  "  It's  astonishing  how  you 
always  can  get  along  in  this  world  without  the  man 

512 


A    HAZAKD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

that  is  simply  indispensable.  Makes  a  fellow  realize 
that  he  could  take  a  day  off  now  and  then  without  do- 
ranging  the  solar  system  a  great  deal.  Now  here's 
Coonrod — or,  rather,  he  isn't.  But  that  boy  managed 
his  part  of  the  schooner  so  well  that  I  used  to  tremble 
when  I  thought  of  his  getting  the  better  of  the  old  man 
and  going  into  a  convent  or  something  of  that  kind ; 
and  now  here  he  is,  snuffed  out  in  half  a  second,  and 
I  don't  believe  but  what  we  shall  be  sailing  along  just 
as  chipper  as  usual  inside  of  thirty  days.  I  reckon  it 
will  bring  the  old  man  to  the  point  when  I  come  to  talk 
with  him  about  who's  to  be  put  in  Coonrod's  place.  I 
don't  like  very  well  to  start  the  subject  with  him;  but 
it's  got  to  be  done  some  time." 

"  Yes,"  March  admitted.  "  It's  terrible  to  think  how 
unnecessary  even  the  best  and  wisest  of  us  is  to  the  pur 
poses  of  Providence.  When  I  looked  at  that  poor  young 
fellow's  face  sometimes — so  gentle  and  true  and  pure 
—I  used  to  think  the  world  was  appreciably  richer  for 
his  being  in  it.  But  are  we  appreciably  poorer  for  his 
being  out  of  it  now  ?" 

"  No,  I  don't  reckon  we  are,"  said.Fulkerson.  "  And 
what  a  lot  of  the  raw  material  of  all  kinds  the  Almighty 
must  have,  to  waste  us  the  way  He  seems  to  do.  Think 
of  throwing  away  a  precious  creature  like  Coonrod  Dry- 
foos  on  one  chance  in  a  thousand  of  getting  that  old 
fool  of  a  Lindau  out  of  the  way  of  being  clubbed !  For 
I  suppose  that  was  what  Coonrod  was  up  to.  Say! 
Have  you  been  round  to  see  Lindau  to-day  ?" 

Something  in  the  tone  or  the  manner  of  Fulkerson 
startled  March.  "  No !  I  haven't  seen  him  since  yes 
terday." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  I  guess 
I  saw  him  a  little  while  after  you  did,  and  that  young 
doctor  there  seemed  to  feel  kind  of  worried  about  him. 

513 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Or  not  worried,  exactly;  they  can't  afford  to  let  such 
things  worry  them,  I  suppose;  but — " 

"He's  worse?"  asked  March. 

"  Oh,  he  didn't  say  so.  But  I  just  wondered  if  you'd 
seen  him  to-day." 

"  I  think  I'll  go  now,"  said  March,  with  a  pang  at 
heart.  He  had  gone  every  day  to  see  Lindau,  but  this 
day  he  had  thought  he  would  not  go,  and  that  was  why 
his  heart  smote  him.  He  knew  that  if  he  were  in 
Lindau's  place  Lindau  would  never  have  left  his  side 
if  he  could  have  helped  it.  March  tried  to  believe  that 
the  case  was  the  same,  as  it  stood  now;  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  was  always  going  to  or  from  the  hospital ; 
he  said  to  himself  that  it  must  do  Lindau  harm  to  be 
visited  so  much.  But  he  knew  that  this  was  not  true 
when  he  was  met  at  the  door  of  the  ward  where  Lindau 
lay  by  the  young  doctor,  who  had  come  to  feel  a  per 
sonal  interest  in  March's  interest  in  Lindau. 

He  smiled  without  gayety,  and  said,  "  He's  just 
going." 

"What!     Discharged?" 

"  Oh  no.  He  has  been  failing  very  fast  since  you 
saw  him  yesterday,  and  now —  They  had  been  walk 
ing  softly  and  talking  softly  down  the  aisle  between  the 
long  rows  of  beds.  "  Would  you  care  to  see  him  ?" 

The  doctor  made  a  slight  gesture  toward  the  white 
canvas  screen  which  in  such  places  forms  the  death- 
chamber  of  the  poor  and  friendless.  "  Come  round  this 
way — he  won't  know  you !  I've  got  rather  fond  of  the 
poor  old  fello\v.  He  wouldn't  have  a  clergyman — sort 
of  agnostic,  isn't  he  ?  A  good  many  of  these  Germans 
are  —  but  the  young  lady  who's  been  coming  to  see 
him—" 

They    both    stopped.      Lindau's    grand,    patriarchal 

head,  foreshortened  to  their  view,  lay  white  upon  the 

514 


A     HAZARD     OF    NEW     FORTUNES 

pillow,  and  his  broad,  white  beard  flowed  upon  the 
sheet,  which  heaved  with  those  long  last  breaths.  Be 
side  his  bed  Margaret  Vance  was  kneeling;  her  veil 
was  thrown  back,  and  her  face  was  lifted;  she  held 
clasped  between  her  hands  the  hand  of  the  dying  man ; 
she  moved  her  lips  inaudibly. 

31 


IN  spite  of  the  experience  of  the  whole  race  from 
time  immemorial,  when  death  comes  to  any  one  we  know 
we  helplessly  regard  it  as  an  incident  of  life,  which 
will  presently  go  on  as  before.  Perhaps  this  is  an  in 
stinctive  perception  of  the  truth  that  it  does  go  on  some 
where;  but  we  have  a  sense  of  death  as  absolutely  the 
end  even  for  earth  only  if  it  relates  to  some  one  re 
mote  or  indifferent  to  us.  March  tried  to  project  Lin- 
dau  to  the  necessary  distance  from  himself  in  order 
to  realize  the  fact  in  his  case,  but  he  could  not,  though 
the  man  with  whom  his  youth  had  been  associated  in  a 
poetic  friendship  had  not  actually  re-entered  the  region 
of  his  affection  to  the  same  degree,  or  in  any  like  de 
gree.  The  changed  conditions  forbade  that.  He  had 
a  soreness  of  heart  concerning  him;  but  he  could  not 
make  sure  whether  this  soreness  was  grief  for  his  death, 
or  remorse  for  his  own  uncandor  with  him  about  Dry- 
foos,  or  a  foreboding  of  that  accounting  with  his  con 
science  which  he  knew  his  wife  would  now  exact  of  him 
down  to  the  last  minutest  particular  of  their  joint  and 
several  behavior  toward  Lindau  ever  since  they  had 
met  him  in  New  York. 

He  felt  something  knock  against  his  shoulder,  and 
he  looked  up  to  have  his  hat  struck  from  his  head  by 
a  horse's  nose.  He  saw  the  horse  put  his  foot  011  the 
hat,  and  he  reflected,  "  Now  it  will  always  look  like  :MI 
accordion,"  and  he  heard  the  horse's  driver  address 

510 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

him  some  sarcasms  before  he  could  fully  awaken  to  the 
situation,  lie1  was  standing  bareheaded  in  the  middle 
of  Fifth  Avenue  and  Mocking  the  tide  of  carriages 
flowing  in  either  direction.  Among  the  faces  put  ont 
of  the  carriage  windows  he  saw  that  of  Dryfoos  looking 
from  a  coupe.  The  old  man  knew  him,  arid  said, 
"Jump  in  here,  Mr.  March'';  and  March,  who  had 
mechanically  picked  up  his  hat,  and  was  thinking, 
"  Now  I  shall  have  to  tell  Isabel  about  this  at  once, 
and  she  will  never  trust  me  on  the  street  again  with 
out  her/7  mechanically  obeyed.  Her  confidence  in  him 
had  been  undermined  by  his  being  so  near  Conrad  when 
he  was  shot;  and  it  went  through  his  mind  that  he 
would  get  Dryfoos  to  drive  him  to  a  hatter's,  where 
he  could  buy  a  new  hat,  and  not  be  obliged  to  confess 
his  narrow  escape  to  his  wife  till  the  incident  was  some 
days  old  and  she  could  bear  it  better.  It  quite  drove 
Lindau's  death  out  of  his  mind  for  the  moment;  and 
when  Dryfoos  said  if  he  was  going  home  he  would 
drive  up  to  the  first  cross-street  and  turn  back  with 
him,  March  said  he  would  be  glad  if  he  would  take  him 
to  a  hat-store.  The  old  man  put  his  head  out  again  and 
told  the  driver  to  take  them  to  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel. 
k  There's  a  hat-store  around  there  somewhere,  seems  to 
me,"  he  said;  and  they  talked  of  March's  accident  as 
well  as  they  could  in  the  rattle  and  clatter  of  the  street 
till  they  reached  the  place.  March  got  his  hat,  passing 
a  joke  with  the  hatter  about  the  impossibility  of  press 
ing  his  old  hat  over  again,  and  came  out  to  thank  Dry 
foos  and  take  leave  of  him. 

"  If  you  ain't  in  any  great  hurry,"  the  old  man  said, 
"  I  wish  you'd  get  in  here  a  minute.  I'd  like  to  have  a 
little  talk  with  yon." 

"Oh,  certainly,"  said  March,  and  he  thought:  "It's 
coming  now  about  what  he  intends  to  do  with  Every 

517 


A    HAZAliD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Other  Week.  Well,  i  might  as  well  have  all  the  mis 
ery  at  once  and  have  it  over." 

Dryfoos  called  up  to  his  driver,  who  bent  his  head 
down  sidewise  to  listen :  "  Go  over  there  on  Madison 
Avenue,  onto  that  asphalt,  and  keep  drivin'  up  and 
down  till  I  stop  you.  I  can't  hear  myself  think  on 
these  pavements/'  he  said  to  March.  But  after  they 
got  upon  the  asphalt,  and  began  smoothly  rolling  over 
it,  he  seemed  in  no  haste  to  begin.  At  last  he  said, 
"  I  wanted  to  talk  with  you  about  that — that  Dutchman 
that  was  at  my  dinner — Lindau,"  and  March's  heart 
gave  a  jump  with  wonder  whether  he  could  already 
have  heard  of  Liudau's  death;  but  in  an  instant  he 
perceived  that  this  was  impossible.  "  I  been  talkin' 
with  Fulkerson  about  him,  and  he  says  they  had  to  take 
the  balance  of  his  arm  off." 

March  nodded ;  it  seemed  to  him  he  could  not  speak. 
He  could  not  make  out  from  the  close  face  of  the  old 
man  anything  of  his  motive.  It  was  set,  but  set  as  a 
piece  of  broken  mechanism  is  when  it  has  lost  the  power 
to  relax  itself.  There  was  no  other  history  in  it  of 
what  the  man  had  passed  through  in  his  son's  death. 

"  I  don't  know,"  Dryfoos  resumed,  looking  aside  at 
the  cloth  window-strap,  which  he  kept  fingering,  "  as 
you  quite  understood  what  made  me  the  maddest.  I 
didn't  tell  him  I  could  talk  Dutch,  because  I  can't  keep 
it  up  with  a  regular  German ;  but  my  father  was  Penn- 
sylvany  Dutch,  and  I  could  understand  what  he  was 
saying  to  you  about  me.  I  know  I  had  no  business  to 
understood  it,  after  I  let  him  think  I  couldn't;  but  I 
did,  and  I  didn't  like  very  well  to  have  a  man  callin' 
me  a  traitor  and  a  tyrant  at  my  own  table.  Well,  I 
look  at  it  differently  now,  and  I  reckon  I  had  better 
have  tried  to  put  up  with  it ;  and  I  would,  if  I  could 
have  known — "  He  stopped  with  a  quivering  lip,  and 

518 


A     HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

then  went  on :  "  Then,  again,  I  didn't  like  his  talkin' 
that  paternalism  of  his.  I  always  heard  it  was  the 
worst  kind  of  thing  for  the  country ;  I  was  brought  up 
to  think  the  best  government  was  the  one  that  governs 
the  least;  and  I  didn't  want  to  hear  that  kind  of  talk 
from  a  man  that  was  livin'  on  my  money.  I  couldn't 
bear  it  from  him.  Or  I  thought  I  couldn't  before — 
before — '  He  stopped  again,  and  gulped.  "  I  reckon 
now  there  ain't  anything  I  couldn't  bear." 

March  was  moved  by  the  blunt  words  and  the  mute 
stare  forward  with  which  they  ended.  "  Mr.  Dryfoos, 
I  didn't  know  that  you  understood  Lindau's  German, 
or  I  shouldn't  have  allowed  him — he  wouldn't  have  al 
lowed  himself — to  go  on.  He  wouldn't  have  knowingly 
abused  his  position  of  guest  to  censure  you,  no  matter 
how  much  he  condemned  you." 

"  I  don't  care  for  it  now,"  said  Dryfoos.  "  It's  all 
past  and  gone,  as  far  as  I'm  concerned ;  but  I  wanted 
you  to  see  that  I  wasn't  tryin'  to  punish  him  for  his 
opinions,  as  you  said." 

"  No ;  I  see  now,"  March  assented,  though  he  thought 
his  position  still  justified.  "  I  wish — 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  understand  much  about  his  opin 
ions,  anyway ;  but  I  ain't  ready  to  say  I  want  the  men 
dependent  on.  me  to  manage  my  business  for  me.  I 
always  tried  to  do  the  square  thing  by  my  hands;  and 
in  that  particular  case  out  there  I  took  on  all  the  old 
hands  just  as  fast  as  they  left  their  Union.  As  for  the 
game  I  came  on  them,  it  was  dog  eat  dog,  anyway." 

March  could  have  laughed  to  think  how  far  this  old 
man  was  from  even  conceiving  of  Lindau's  point  of 
view,  and  how  he  was  saying  the  worst  of  himself  that 
Lindau  could  have  said  of  him.  No  one  could  have 
characterized  the  kind  of  thing  he  had  done  more  se 
verely  than  he  when  he  called  it  dog  eat  dog. 

519 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"There's  a  great  deal  to  IK-  said  on  both  sides/' 
March  began,  hoping  to  lead  up  through  this  generality 
to  the  fact  of  Landau's  death ;  but  the  old  man  wont  on : 

"  Well,  all  I  wanted  him  to  know  is  that  I  wasn't 
trying  to  punish  him  for  what  he  said  about  things 
in  general.  You  naturally  got  that  idea,  I  reckon; 
but  I  always  went  in  for  lettin'  people  say  what  they 
please  and  think  what  they  please;  it's  the  only  way 
in  a  free  country." 

"  I'm  afraid,  Mr.  Dryfoos,  that  it  would  make  little 
difference  to  Lindau  now— 

"  I  don't  suppose  he  bears  malice  for  it,"  said  Dry 
foos,  "  but  what  I  want  to  do  is  to  have  him  told  so. 
He  could  understand  just  why  I  didn't  want  to  be  called 
hard  names,  and  yet  I  didn't  object  to  his  thinkin'  what 
ever  he  pleased.  I'd  like  him  to  know — 

"  ~No  one  can  speak  to  him,  no  one  can  tell  him," 
March  began  again,  but  again  Dryfoos  prevented  him 
from  going  on. 

"I  understand  it's  a  delicate  thing;  and  I'm  not 
askin'  you  to  do  it.  What  I  would  really  like  to  do 
— if  you  think  he  could  be  prepared  for  it,  some  way, 
and  could  stand  it — would  be  to  go  to  him  myself,  and 
tell  him  just  what  the  trouble  was.  I'm  in  hopes,  if 
I  done  that,  he  could  see  how  I  felt  about  it." 

A  picture  of  Dryfoos  going  to  the  dead  Lindau  with 
his  vain  regrets  presented  itself  to  March,  and  he  tried 
once  more  to  make  the  old  man  understand.  "  Mr. 
Dryfoos,"  he  said,  "  Lindau  is  past  all  that  forever," 
and  he  felt  the  ghastly  comedy  of  it  when  Dryfoos 
continued,  without  heeding  him: 

"  I  got  a  particular  reason  why  I  want  him  to  be 
lieve  it  wasn't  his  ideas  I  objected  to — them  ideas  of 
his  about  the  government  carry  in'  everything  on  and 
givin'  work.  I  don't  understand  'em  exactly,  but  I 

520 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

found  a  writ  in' — among — my  son's — things  "  (he  seem 
ed  to  force  the  words  through  his  teeth),  "  and  I  reckon 
he — thought — thnt  way.  Kind  of  a  diary — where  he 
—put  down — his  thoughts.  My  son  and  me — we  dif 
fered  about  a  good  —  many  things."  His  chin  shook, 
and  from  time  to  time  he  stopped.  "  I  wasn't  very 
good  to  him,  I  reckon;  I  crossed  him  where  I  guess  I 
got  no  business  to  cross  him ;  but  I  thought  everything 
of — Coonrod.  He  was  the  best  boy,  from  a  baby,  that 
ever  was;  just  so  patient  and  mild,  and  done  whatever 
he  was  told.  I  ought  to  'a7  let  him  been  a  preacher! 
Oh,  my  son !  my  son !"  The  sobs  could  not  be  kept 
back  any  longer;  they  shook  the  old  man  with  a  vio 
lence  that  made  March  afraid  for  him ;  but  he  con 
trolled  himself  at  last  with  a  series  of  hoarse  sounds 
like  barks.  "  Well,  it's  all  past  and  gone !  But  as  I 
understand  you  from  what  you  saw,  when — Coonrod — 
was — killed,  he  was  tryin'  to  save  that  old  man  from 
trouble  ?" 

"  Yes,  yes !    It  seemed  so  to  me." 

"  That  '11  do,  then !  I  want  you  to  have  him  come 
back  and  write  for  the  book  when  he  gets  well.  I  want 
you  to  find  out  and  let  me  know  if  there's  anything  I 
can  do  for  him.  I'll  feel  as  if  I  done  it — for  my — 
son.  I'll  take  him  into  my  own  house,  and  do  for  him 
there,  if  you  say  so.  when  he  gets  so  he  can  be  moved. 
I'll  wait  on  him  myself.  It's  what  Coonrod  'd  do,  if 
he  was  here.  I  don't  feel  any  hardness  to  him  because 
it  was  him  that  got  Coonrod  killed,  as  you  might  say, 
in  one  sense  of  the  term ;  but  I've  tried  to  think  it  out, 
and  I  feel  like  I  was  all  the  more  beholden  to  him  be 
cause  my  son  died  tryin'  to  save  him.  Whatever  I  do, 
I'll  be  doin'  it  for  Coonrod,  and  that's  enough  for  me." 
He  seemed  to  have  finished,  and  he  turned  to  March 
as  if  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say. 

521 


A     II  AX  AIM)     OF'NKW     FORTUNES 

March  hesitated.  "  I'm  afraid,  Mr.  Dryfoos — 
Didn't  Fulkerson  tell  you  that  Lindau  was  very  sick  ?" 
"  Yes,  of  course.  But  he's  all  right,  he  said." 
Now  it  had  to  come,  though  the  fact  had  been  lat 
terly  playing  fast  and  loose  with  March's  consciousness. 
Something  almost  made  him  smile;  the  willingness  he 
had  once  felt  to  give  this  old  man  pain ;  then  he  con 
soled  himself  by  thinking  that  at  least  he  was  not 
obliged  to  meet  Dryfoos's  wish  to  make  atonement  with 
the  fact  that  Lindau  had  renounced  him,  and  would  on 
no  terms  work  for  such  a  man  as  he,  or  suffer  any  kind 
ness  from  him.  In  this  light  Lindau  seemed  the  harder 
of  the  two,  and  March  had  the  momentary  force  to  say : 
"  Mr.  Dryfoos — it  can't  be.  Lindau — I  have  just  come 
from  him — is  dead." 


XT 


"  How  did  he  take  it  ?  How  could  he  bear  it  ?  Oh, 
Basil !  I  wonder  you  could  have  the  heart  to  say  it  to 
him.  It  was  cruel !" 

"  Yes,  cruel  enough,  my  dear,"  March  owned  to  his 
wife,  when  they  talked  the  matter  over  on  his  return 
home.  He  could  not  wait  till  the  children  were  out  of 
the  way,  and  afterward  neither  he  nor  his  wife  was 
sorry  that  he  had  spoken  of  it  before  them.  The  girl 
cried  plentifully  for  her  old  friend  who  was  dead,  and 
said  she  hated  Mr.  Dryfoos,  and  then  was  sorry  for 
him,  too;  and  the  boy  listened  to  all,  and  spoke  with  a 
serious  sense  that  pleased  his  father.  "  But  as  to  how 
he  took  it,"  March  went  on  to  answer  his  wife's  ques 
tion  about  Dryfoos — "  how  do  any  of  us  take  a  thing 
that  hurts?  Some  of  us  cry  out,  and  some  of  us — 
don't.  Dryfoos  drew  a  kind  of  long,  quivering  breath, 
as  a  child  does  when  it  grieves — there's  something  curi 
ously  simple  and  primitive  about  him — and  didn't  say 
anything.  After  a  while  he  asked  me  how  he  could  see 
the  people  at  the  hospital  about  the  remains;  I  gave- 
him  my  card  to  the  young  doctor  there  that  had  charge 
of  Lindau.  I  suppose  he  was  still  carrying  forward  his 
plan  of  reparation  in  his  mind — to  the  dead  for  the 
dead.  But  how  useless!  If  he  could  have  taken  the 
living  Lindau  home  with  him,  and  cared  for  him  all 
his  days,  what  would  it  have  profited  the  gentle  creature 
whose  life  his  worldly  ambition  vexed  and  thwarted 

523 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

here  'I  lie  might  as  well  offer  a  sacrifice  at  Conrad's 
grave.  Children/'  said  March,  turning  to  them,  "  death 
is  an  exile  that  no  remorse  and  no  love  can  reach.  Re 
member  that,  and  be  good  to  every  one  here  on  earth, 
for  your  longing  to  retrieve  any  harshness  or  unkind- 
ness  to  the  dead  will  be  the  very  ecstasy  of  anguish  to 
you.  I  wonder/'  he  mused,  "  if  one  of  the  reasons  why 
we're  shut  up  to  our  ignorance  of  what  is  to  be  here 
after  isn't  because  if  we  were  sure  of  another  world 
we  might  be  still  more  brutal  to  one  another  here,  in 
the  hope  of  making  reparation  somewhere  else.  Per 
haps,  if  we  ever  come  to  obey  the  law  of  love  on  earth, 
the  mystery  of  death  will  be  taken  away." 

"  Well " — the  ancestral  Puritanism  spoke  in  Mrs. 
March — "  these  two  old  men  have  been  terribly  pun 
ished.  They  have  both  been  violent  and  wilful,  and 
they  have  both  been  punished.  No  one  need  ever 
tell  me  there  is  not  a  moral  government  of  the  uni 
verse  !"' 

March  always  disliked  to  hear  her  talk  in  this  way, 
which  did  both  her  head  and  heart  injustice.  "  And 
Conrad,"  he  said,  "  what  was  lie  punished  for  ?" 

"  He  ?"  she  answered,  in  an  exaltation — "  he  suffered 
for  the  sins  of  others." 

"  Ah,  well,  if  you  put  it  in  that  way,  yes.  That 
goes  on  continually.  That's  another  mystery." 

He  fell  to  brooding  on  it,  and  presently  he  heard  his 
son  saying,  "  I  suppose,  papa,  that  Mr.  Lindau  died  in 
a  bad  cause  ?" 

March  was  startled.  He  had  always  been  so  sorry 
for  Lindau,  and  admired  his  courage  and  generosity 
so  much,  that  he  had  never  fairly  considered  this  ques 
tion.  "  Why,  yes,"  he  answered ;  "  he  died  in  the  cause 
of  disorder ;  he  wyas  trying  to  obstruct  the  law.  No 
doubt  there  was  a  wrong  there,  an  inconsistency  and  an 

524 


A     1TAZAKD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

injustice  flint  ho  felt  keenly;  br.t  il  could  not  be  reached 
in  bis  way  without  greater  wrong." 

"  Yes;  that's  what  I  thought,"  snid  the  boy.  "  And 
what's  the  use  of  our  ever  fighting  about  anything  in 
America  ?  I  always  thought  we  could  vote  anything  we 
wanted." 

"  We  can,  if  we're  honest,  and  don't  buy  and  sell 
one  another's  votes,"  said  his  father.  "  And  men  like 
Lindau,  who  renounce  the  American  means  as  hopeless, 
and  let  their  love  of  justice  hurry  them  into  sympathy 
with  violence — yes,  they  are  wrong;  and  poor  Lindau 
did  die  in  a  bad  cause,  as  you  say,  Tom." 

"  I  think  Conrad  had  no  business  there,  or  you, 
either,  Basil,"  said  his  wife. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  defend  myself,"  said  March.  "  I  was 
there  in  the  cause  of  literary  curiosity  and  of  conjugal 
disobedience.  But  Conrad — yes,  he  had  some  business 
there:  it  was  his  business  to  suffer  there  for  the  sins  of 
others.  Isabel,  we  can't  throw  aside  that  old  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement  yet.  The  life  of  Christ,  it  wasn't 
only  in  healing  the  sick  and  going  about  to  do  good; 
it  was  suffering  for  the  sins  of  others.  That's  as  great 
a  mystery  as  the  mystery  of  death.  Why  should  there 
be  such  a  principle  in  the  world?  But  it's  been  felt, 
and  more  or  less  dumbly,  blindly  recognized  ever  since 
Calvary.  If  we  love  mankind,  pity  them,  we  even 
wish  to  suffer  for  them.  That's  what  has  created  the 
religious  orders  in  all  times — the  brotherhoods  and  sis 
terhoods  that  belong  to  our  day  as  much  as  to  the  medi 
eval  past.  That's  what  is  driving  a  girl  like  Margaret 
\7ance,  who  has  everything  that  the  world  can  offer  her 
young  beauty,  on  to  the  work  of  a  Sister  of  Charity 
among  the  poor  and  the  dying." 

"  Yes,  yes!"  cried  Mrs.  March.  "  TTow — how  did 
she  look  there,  Basil  ?"  She  had  her  feminine  mis- 

525 


A     HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

giviugs;  she  was  not  sure  but  the  girl  was  something 
of  a  poseuse,  and  enjoyed  the  picturesqueness,  as  well 
as  the  pain ;  and  she  wished  to  be  convinced  that  it 
was  not  so. 

ki  Well,"  she  said,  when  March  had  told  again  the 
little  there  was  to  tell,  "  I  suppose  it  must  be  a  great 
trial  to  a  woman  like  Mrs.  Horn  to  have  her  niece 
going  that  way." 

"  The  way  of  Christ  ?"  asked  March,  with  a  smile. 

"  Oh,  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  teach  us  how 
to  live  rightly  in  it,  too.  If  we  were  all  to  spend  our 
time  in  hospitals,  it  would  be  rather  dismal  for  the 
homes.  But  perhaps  you  don't  think  the  homes  are 
worth  minding?"  she  suggested,  with  a  certain  note  in 
her  voice  that  he  knew. 

He  got  up  and  kissed  her.  "  I  think  the  gim- 
crackeries  are."  He  took  the  hat  he  had  set  down 
on  the  parlor  table  on  corning  in,  and  started  to  put 
it  in  the  hall,  and  that  made  her  notice  it. 

"  You've  been  getting  a  new  hat !" 

"  Yes,"  he  hesitated ;  "  the  old  one  had  got — was  de 
cidedly  shabby." 

"  Well,  that's  right.  I  don't  like  you  to  wear  them 
too  long.  Did  you  leave  the  old  one  to  be  pressed  ?" 

"  Well,  the  hatter  seemed  to  think  it  was  hardly 
worth  pressing,"  said  March.  He  decided  that  for  the 
present  his  wife's  nerves  had  quite  all  they  could  bear. 


XII 


IT  was  in  a  manner  grotesque,  but  to  March  it  WHS 
all  the  more  natural  for  that  reason,  that  Dryfoos 
should  have  Lindau's  funeral  from  his  house.  He 
knew  the  old  man  to  be  darkly  groping,  through  the 
payment  of  these  vain  honors  to  the  dead,  for  some 
atonement  to  his  son.  and  he  imagined  him  finding  in 
them  such  comfort  as  comes  from  doing  all  one  can, 
even  when  all  is  useless. 

No  one  knew  what  Lindau's  religion  was,  and  in 
default  they  had  had  the  Anglican  burial  service  read 
over  him;  it  seems  so  often  the  refuge  of  the  homeless 
dead.  Mrs.  Dryfoos  came  down  for  the  ceremony. 
She  understood  that  it  was  for  Coonrod's  sake  that  his 
father  wished  the  funeral  to  be  there ;  and  she  confided 
to  Mrs.  March  that  she  believed  Coonrod  would  have 
been  pleased.  "  Coonrod  was  a  member  of  the  'Pisco- 
pal  Church;  and  fawther's  doin'  the  whole  thing  for 
Coonrod  as  much  as  for  anybody.  He  thought  the 
world  of  Coonrod,  fawther  did.  Mela,  she  kind  of 
thought  it  would  look  queer  to  have  two  funerals  from 
the  same  house,  hand-runnin',  as  you  might  call  it,  and 
one  of  'em  no  relation,  either;  but  when  she  saw  how 
fawther  was  bent  on  it,  she  give  in.  Seems  as  if  she  was 
try  in'  to  make  up  to  fawther  for  Coonrod  as  much  as 
she  could.  Mela  always  was  a  good  child,  but  nobody 
can  ever  come  up  to  Coonrod." 

March  felt  all  the  grotesqueness,  the  hopeless  ab- 

527 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

surdity  of  Dryfoos's  endeavor  at  atonement  in  these 
vain  obsequies  to  the  man  for  whom  he  believed  his 
son  to  have  died ;  but  the  effort  had  its  magnanimity, 
its  pathos,  and  there  was  a  poetry  that  appealed  to  him 
in  the  reconciliation  through  death  of  men,  of  ideas,  of 
conditions,  that  could  only  have  gone  warring  on  in 
life.  He  thought,  as  the  priest  went  on  with  the  sol 
emn  liturgy,  how  all  the  world  must  come  together  in 
that  peace  which,  struggle  and  strive  as  we  may,  shall 
claim  us  at  last.  He  looked  at  Dryfoos,  and  wondered 
whether  he  would  consider  these  rites  a  sufficient  tribute, 
or  whether  there  was  enough  in  him  to  make  him  realize 
their  futility,  except  as  a  mere  sign  of  his  wish  to  re 
trieve  the  past.  He  thought  how  we  never  can  atone 
for  the  wrong  we  do;  the  heart  we  have  grieved  and 
wounded  cannot  kindle  with  pity  for  us  when  once  it 
is  stilled;  and  yet  we  can  put  our  evil  from  us  with 
penitence;  and  somehow,  somewhere,  the  order  of  lov 
ing  kindness,  which  our  passion  or  our  wilfulness  has 
disturbed,  will  be  restored. 

Dryfoos,  through  Fulkerson,  had  asked  all  the  more 
intimate  contributors  of  Every  Oilier  Week  to  come. 
Beaton  was  absent,  but  Fulkerson  had  brought  Miss 
Woodburn,  with  her  father,  and  Mrs.  Leighton  and 
Alma,  to  fill  up,  as  he  said.  Mela  was  much  present, 
and  was  official  with  the  arrangement  of  the  flowers 
and  the  welcome  of  the  guests.  She  imparted  this  im 
personality  to  her  reception  of  Kendricks,  whom  Ful 
kerson  met  in  the  outer  hall  with  his  party,  and  whom 
he  presented  in  whisper  to  them  all.  Kendricks  smiled 
under  his  breath,  as  it  were,  and  was  then  mutely  and 
seriously  polite  to  the  Leightons.  Alma  brought  a  lit 
tle  bunch  of  flowers,  which  were  lost  in  those  which 
Dryfoos  had  ordered  to  be  unsparingly  provided. 

It  was  a  kind  of  satisfaction  to  Mela  to  have  Miss 

528 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Vance  conic,  and  reassuring  as  to  how  it  would  look 
to  have  the  funeral  there;  Miss  Vance  would  certainly 
not  have  come  unless  it  had  been  all  right;  she  had 
come,  and  had  sent  some  Easter  lilies. 

"  Ain't  Christine  coming  down  ?"  Fulkerson  asked 
Mela. 

"  No,  she  ain't  a  bit  well,  and  she  ain't  been,  ever 
since  Coonrod  died.  I  don't  know  what's  got  over  her," 
said  Mela.  She  added,  "Well,  I  should  V  thought 
Mr.  Beaton  would  V  made  out  to  'a'  come !" 

"  Beaton's  peculiar,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  If  he  thinks 
you  want  him  he  takes  a  pleasure  in  not  letting  you 
have  him." 

"  Well,  goodness  knows,  I  don't  want  him,"  said  the 
girl. 

Christine  kept  her  room,  arid  for  the  most  part  kept 
her  bed;  but  there  seemed  nothing  definitely  the  mat 
ter  with  her,  and  she  would  not  let  them  call  a  doctor. 
Her  mother  said  she  reckoned  she  was  beginning  to 
feel  the  spring  weather,  that  always  perfectly  pulled 
a  body  down  in  T^ow  York ;  and  Mela  said  if  being  as 
cross  as  two  sticks  was  any  sign  of  spring-fever,  Chris 
tine  had  it  bad.  She  was  faithfully  kind  to  her,  and 
submitted  to  all  her  humors,  but  she  recompensed  her 
self  by  the  freest  criticism  of  Christine  when  not  in 
actual  attendance  on  her.  Christine  would  not  suffer 
Mrs.  Mandel  to  approach  her,  and  she  had  with  her 
father  a  sullen  submission  which  was  not  resignation. 
For  her,  apparently,  Conrad  had  not  died,  or  had  died 
in  vain. 

"  Pshaw !"  said  Mela,  one  morning  when  she  came 
to  breakfast,  "  I  reckon  if  we  was  to  send  up  an  old 
card  of  Mr.  Beaton's  she'd  rattle  down-  stairs  fast 
enough.  Tf  she's  sick,  she's  love-sick.  It  makes  me 
sick  to  sec  her." 

529 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Mela  was  talking  to  Mrs.  Mandel,  but  her  father 
looked  up  from  his  plate  and  listened.  Mela  went  on: 
"  /  don't  know  what's  made  the  fellow  quit  comun'. 
But  he  was  an  aggravatun'  thing,  and  no  more  depend 
able  than  water.  It's  just  like  Mr.  Fulkerson  said,  if 
he  thinks  you  want  him  he'll  take  a  pleasure  in  not 
lettun'  you  have  him.  I  reckon  that's  what's  the  matter 
with  Christine.  I  believe  in  my  heart  the  girl  '11  die 
if  she  don't  git  him." 

Mela  went  on  to  eat  her  breakfast  with  her  own 
good  appetite.  She  now  always  came  down  to  keep  her 
father  company,  as  she  said,  and  she  did  her  best  to 
cheer  and  comfort  him.  At  least  she  kept  the  talk 
going,  and  she  had  it  nearly  all  to  herself,  for  Mrs. 
Mandel  was  now  merely  staying  on  provisionally,  and, 
in  the  absence  of  any  regrets  or  excuses  from  Christine, 
was  looking  ruefully  forward  to  the  moment  when  she 
must  leave  even  this  ungentle  home  for  the  chances  of 
the  ruder  world  outside. 

The  old  man  said  nothing  at  table,  but,  when  Mela 
went  up  to  see  if  she  could  do  anything  for  Christine, 
he  asked  Mrs.  Mandel  again  about  all  the  facts  of  her 
last  interview  with  Beaton. 

She  gave  them  as  fully  as  she  could  remember  them, 
and  the  old  man  made  no  comment  on  them.  But  he 
went  out  directly  after,  and  at  the  Every  Other  Week 
office  he  climbed  the  stairs  to  Fulkerson's  room  and 
asked  for  Beaton's  address.  Xo  one  yet  had  taken 
charge  of  Conrad's  work,  and  Fulkerson  was  running 
the  thing  himself,  as  he  said,  till  he  could  talk  with 
Dryfoos  about  it.  The  old  man  would  not  look  into 
the  empty  room  where  he  had  last  seen  his  son  alive; 
he  turned  his  face  away  and  hurried  by  the  door. 


Xlli 

THE  course  of  public  events  carried  Beaton's  private 
affairs  beyond  the  reach  of  his  simple  first  intention 
to  renounce  his  connection  with  Every  Other  Week. 
In  fact,  this  was  not  perhaps  so  simple  as  it  seemed, 
and  long  before  it  could  be  put  in  effect  it  appeared 
still  simpler  to  do  nothing  about  the  matter — to  remain 
passive  and  leave  the  initiative  to  Dryfoos,  to  maintain 
the  dignity  of  unconsciousness  and  let  recognition  of 
any  change  in  the  situation  come  from  those  who  had 
caused  the  change.  After  all,  it  was  rather  absurd  to 
propose  making  a  purely  personal  question  the  pivot 
on  which  his  relations  with  Every  Other  Week  turned. 
He  took  a  hint  from  March's  position  and  decided  that 
he  did  not  know  Dryfoos  in  these  relations;  he  knew 
only  Fulkerson,  who  had  certainly  had  nothing  to  do 
with  Mrs.  Mandel's  asking  his  intentions.  As  he  re 
flected  upon  this  he  became  less  eager  to  look  Fulker 
son  up  and  make  the  magazine  a  partner  of  his  own 
sufferings.  This  was  the  soberer  mood  to  which  Beaton 
trusted  that  night  even  before  he  slept,  and  he  awoke 
fully  confirmed  in  it.  As  he  examined  the  offence  done 
him  in  the  cold  light  of  day,  he  perceived  that  it  had 
not  come  either  from  Mrs.  Mandel,  who  was  visibly  the 
faltering  and  unwilling  instrument  of  it,  or  from  Chris 
tine,  who  was  altogether  ignorant  of  it,  but  from  Dry 
foos,  whom  he  could  not  hurt  by  giving  up  his  place. 
He  could  only  punish  Fulkerson  by  that,  and  Fulker- 

35  531 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

son  was  innocent.  Justice  and  interest  alike  dictated 
the  passive  course  to  which  Beaton  inclined ;  and  he 
reflected  that  he  might  safely  leave  the  punishment  of 
Dryfoos  to  Christine,  who  would  find  out  what  had 
happened,  and  would  be  able  to  take  care  of  herself  in 
any  encounter  of  tempers  with  her  father. 

Beaton  did  not  go  to  the  office  during  the  week  that 
followed  upon  this  conclusion ;  but  they  were  used 
there  to  these  sudden  absences  of  his,  and,  as  his  work 
for  the  time  was  in  train,  nothing  was  made  of  his 
staying  away,  except  the  sarcastic  comment  which  the 
thought  of  him  was  apt  to  excite  in  the  literary  depart 
ment.  He  no  longer  came  so  much  to  the  Leightons, 
and  Fulkerson  was  in  no  state  of  mind  to  miss  any 
one  there  except  Miss  Woodburn,  whom  he  never  miss 
ed.  Beaton  was  left,  then,  unmolestedly  awaiting  the 
course  of  destiny,  when  he  read  in  the  morning  paper, 
over  his  coffee  at  Maroni's,  the  deeply  scare  -  headed 
story  of  Conrad's  death  and  the  clubbing  of  Lindau. 
He  probably  cared  as  little  for  either  of  them  as  any 
man  that  ever  saw  them;  but  he  felt  a  shock,  if  not  a 
pang,  at  Conrad's  fate,  so  out  of  keeping  with  his  life 
and  character.  He  did  not  know  what  to  do;  and  he 
did  nothing.  He  was  not  asked  to  the  funeral,  but  he 
had  not  expected  that,  and,  when  Fulkerson  brought 
him  notice  that  Lindau  was  also  to  be  buried  from 
Dryfoos's  house,  it  was  without  his  usual  sullen  viri- 
dictiveness  that  he  kept  away.  In  his  sort,  and  as 
much  as  a  man  could  who  was  necessarily  so  much 
taken  up  with  himself,  he  was  sorry  for  Conrad's 
father;  Beaton  had  a  peculiar  tenderness  for  his  own 
father,  and  he  imagined  how  his  father  would  feel  if 
it  were  he  who  had  been  killed  in  Conrad's  place,  as 
it  might  very  well  have  been ;  he  sympathized  with 
himself  in  view  of  the  possibility ;  and  for  once 

532 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

they  were  mistaken  who  thought  him  indifferent  and 
merely  brutal  in  his  failure  to  appear  at  Lindau's 
obsequies. 

lie  would  really  have  gone  if  he  had  known  how  to 
reconcile  his  presence  in  that  house  with  the  terms  of 
his  effective  banishment  from  it;  and  he  was  rather 
forgivingly  finding  himself  wronged  in  the  situation, 
when  Dryfoos  knocked  at  the  studio  door  the  morning 
after  Lindau's  funeral.  Beaton  roared  out,  "  Come 
in !"  as  he  always  did  to  a  knock  if  he  had  not  a  model ; 
if  he  had  a  model  he  set  the  door  slightly  ajar,  and  with 
his  palette  on  his  thumb  frowned  at  his  visitor  and 
told  him  he  could  not  come  in.  Dryfoos  fumbled  about 
for  the  knob  in  the  dim  passageway  outside,  and  Bea 
ton,  who  had  experience  of  people's  difficulties  with  it, 
suddenly  jerked  the  door  open.  The  two  men  stood 
confronted,  and  at  first  sight  of  each  other  their  quies 
cent  dislike  revived.  Each  would  have  been  willing  to 
turn  away  from  the  other,  but  that  was  not  possible. 
Beaton  snorted  some  sort  of  inarticulate  salutation, 
which  Dryfoos  did  not  try  to  return ;  he  asked  if  he 
could  see  him  alone  for  a  minute  or  two,  and  Beaton 
bade  him  come  in,  and  swept  some  paint-blotched  rags 
from  the  chair  which  he  told  him  to  take.  He  noticed, 
as  the  old  man  sank  tremulously  into  it,  that  his  move 
ment  was  like  that  of  his  own  father,  and  also  that  he 
looked  very  much  like  Christine.  Dryfoos  folded  his 
hands  tremulously  on  the  top  of  his  horn-handled  stick, 
and  he  was  rather  finely  haggard,  with  the  dark  hol 
lows  round  his  black  eyes  and  the  fall  of  the  muscles 
on  either  side  of  his  chin.  He  had  forgotten  to  take 
his  soft,  wide-brimmed  hat  off;  and  Beaton  felt  a  de 
sire  to  sketch  him  just  as  he  sat. 

Dryfoos  suddenly  pulled  himself  together  from  the 
dreary  absence  into  which  he  fell  at  first.  "  Young 

533 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

man,"  he  began,  "  maybe  I've  come  here  on  a  fool's 
errand,"  and  Beaton  rather  fancied  that  beginning. 

But  it  embarrassed  him  a  little,  and  he  said,  with  a 
shy  glance  aside,  "  I  don't  know  Avhat  you  mean." 

"  I  reckon,"  Dryfoos  answered,  quietly,  "  you  got 
your  notion,  though.  I  set  that  woman  on  to  speak  to 
you  the  way  she  done.  But  if  there  was  anything 
wrong  in  the  way  she  spoke,  or  if  you  didn't  feel  like 
she  had  any  right  to  question  you  up  as  if  we  suspected 
you  of  anything  mean,  I  want  you  to  say  so." 

Beaton  said  nothing,  and  the  old  man  went  on. 

"  I  ain't  very  well  up  in  the  ways  of  the  world,  and 
I  don't  pretend  to  be.  All  I  want  is  to  be  fair  and 
square  with  everybody.  I've  made  mistakes,  though, 
in  my  time — "  He  stopped,  and  Beaton  was  not  proof 
against  the  misery  of  his  face,  which  was  twisted  as 
with  some  strong  physical  ache.  "  I  don't  know  as  I 
want  to  make  any  more,  if  I  can  help  it.  I  don't  know 
but  what  you  had  a  right  to  keep  on  comin',  and  if 
you  had  I  want  you  to  say  so.  Don't  you  be  afraid 
but  what  I'll  take  it  in  the  right  way.  I  don't  want 
to  take  advantage  of  anybody,  and  I  don't  ask  you  to 
say  any  more  than  that." 

Beaton  did  not  find  the  humiliation  of  the  man  who 
had  humiliated  him  so  sweet  as  he  could  have  fancied 
it  might  be.  He  knew  how  it  had  come  about,  and 
that  it  was  an  effect  of  love  for  his  child;  it  did  not 
matter  by  what  ungracious  means  she  had  brought  him 
to  know  that  he  loved  her  better  than  his  own  will,  that 
his  wish  for  her  happiness  was  stronger  than  his  pride ; 
it  was  enough  that  he  was  now  somehow  brought  to  give 
proof  of  it.  Beaton  could  not  be  aware  of  all  that  dark 
coil  of  circumstance  through  which  Dryfoos's  present 
action  evolved  itself;  the  worst  of  this  was  buried  in 
the  secret  of  the  old  man's  heart,  a  worm  of  perpetual 

534 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

torment.  What  was  apparent  to  another  was  that  he 
was  broken  by  the  sorrow  that  had  fallen  upon  him, 
and  it  was  this  that  Beaton  respected  and  pitied  in  his 
impulse  to  be  frank  and  kind  in  his  answer. 

"  No,  I  had  no  right  to  keep  coming  to  your  house 
in  the  way  I  did,  unless — unless  I  meant  more  than 
I  ever  said."  Beaton  added :  "  I  don't  say  that  what 
you  did  was  usual — in  this  country,  at  any  rate;  but 
I  can't  say  you  were  wrong.  Since  you  speak  to  me 
about  the  matter,  it's  only  fair  to  myself  to  say  that 
a  good  deal  goes  on  in  life  without  much  thinking  of 
consequences.  That's  the  way  I  excuse  myself." 

"  And  you  say  Mrs.  Mandel  done  right  ?"  asked 
Dryfoos,  as  if  he  wished  simply  to  be  assured  of  a 
point  of  etiquette. 

u  Yes,  she  did  right,     I've  nothing  to  complain  of." 

"  That's  all  I  wanted  to  know,"  said  Dryfoos ;  but 
apparently  he  had  not  finished,  and  he  did  not  go, 
though  the  silence  that  Beaton  now  kept  gave  him  a 
chance  to  do  so.  Tie  began  a  series  of  questions  which 
had  no  relation  to  the  matter  in  hand,  though  they  were 
strictly  personal  to  Beaton.  "  What  countryman  are 
you  ?"  he  asked,  after  a  moment. 

"  What  countryman  ?"  Beaton  frowned  back  at. 
him. 

"  Yes,  are  you  an  American  by  birth  ?"" 

"  Yes ;  I  was  born  in  Syracuse." 

"  Protestant  ?" 

"  My  father  is  a  Scotch  Seceder." 

"  What  business  is  your  father  in  ?" 

Beaton  faltered  and  blushed;  then  he  answered: 
"  He's  in  the  monument  business,  as  he  calls  it.  He's 
a  tombstone  cutter."  N"ow  that  he  was  launched,  Bea- 
ton  saw  no  reason  for  not  declaring,  "  My  father's  al 
ways  been  a  poor  man,  and  worked  with  his  own  hands 

535 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

for  his  living."  He  had  too  slight  esteem  socially  for 
Dryfoos  to  conceal  a  fact  from  him  that  he  might  have 
wished  to  blink  with  others. 

"  Well,  that's  right,"  said  Dryfoos.  "  I  used  to  farm 
it  myself.  I've  got  a  good  pile  of  money  together,  now. 
At  first  it  didn't  come  easy;  but  now  it's  got  started 
it  pours  in  and  pours  in;  it  seems  like  there  was  no 
end  to  it.  I've  got  well  on  to  three  million ;  but  it 
couldn't  keep  me  from  losin'  my  son.  It  can't  buy  me 
back  a  minute  of  his  life;  not  all  the  money  in  the 
world  can  do  it !" 

He  grieved  this  out  as  if  to  himself  rather  than  to 
Beaton,  who  scarcely  ventured  to  say,  "  I  know — I  am 
very  sorry — " 

"  How  did  you  come,"  Dryfoos  interrupted,  "  to  take 
up  paintin'  ?" 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  Beaton,  a  little  scorn 
fully.  "  You  don't  take  a  thing  of  that  kind  up,  I 
fancy.  I  always  wanted  to  paint." 

"  Father  try  to  stop  you  ?" 

"  No.     It  wouldn't  have  been  of  any  use.     Why — " 

"  My  son,  he  wanted  to  be  a  preacher,  and  I  did  stop 
him  —  or  I  thought  I  did.  But  I  reckon  he  was  a 
preacher,  all  the  same,  every  minute  of  his  life.  As 
you  say,  it  ain't  any  use  to  try  to  stop  a  thing  like  that. 
I  reckon  if  a  child  has  got  any  particular  bent,  it  was 
given  to  it;  and  it's  goin'  against  the  grain,  it's  goin' 
against  the  law,  to  try  to  bend  it  some  other  way. 
There's  lots  of  good  business  men,  Mr.  Beaton,  twenty 
of  'em  to  every  good  preacher?" 

"  I  imagine  more  than  twenty,"  said  Beaton,  amused 
and  touched  through  his  curiosity  as  to  what  the  old 
man  was  driving  at  by  the  quaint  simplicity  of  his 
speculations. 

"  Father  ever  come  to  the  city  ?" 

536 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  No ;  he  never  has  the  time ;  and  my  mother's  an 
invalid." 

"  Oh !     Brothers  and  sisters  ?" 

"  Yes ;  we're  a  large  family." 

"  I  lost  two  little  fellers  —  twins,"  said  Dryfoos, 
sadly.  "  But  we  hain't  ever  had  but  just  the  five. 
Ever  take  portraits  ?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Beaton,  meeting  this  zigzag  in  the 
queries  as  seriously  as  the  rest.  "  I  don't  think  I  am 
good  at  it." 

Dryfoos  got  to  his  feet.  "  I  wish  you'd  paint  a  like 
ness  of  my  son.  You've  seen  him  plenty  of  times. 
We  won't  fight  about  the  price,  don't  you  be  afraid  of 
that." 

Beaton  was  astonished,  and  in  a  mistaken  way  he 
was  disgusted.  He  saw  that  Dryfoos  was  trying  to 
undo  Mrs.  Mandel's  work  practically,  and  get  him  to 
come  again  to  his  house ;  that  he  now  conceived  of  the 
offence  given  him  as  condoned,  and  wished  to  restore 
the  former  situation.  He  knew  that  he  was  attempting 
this  for  Christine's  sake,  but  he  was  not  the  man  to 
imagine  that  Dryfoos  was  trying  not  only  to  tolerate 
him,  but  to  like  him;  and,  in  fact,  Dryfoos  was  not 
wholly  conscious  himself  of  this  end.  What  they  both 
understood  was  that  Dryfoos  was  endeavoring  to  get  at 
Beaton  through  Conrad's  memory;  but  with  one  this 
was  its  dedication  to  a  purpose  of  self  -  sacrifice,  and 
with  the  other  a  vulgar  and  shameless  use  of  it. 

"  I  couldn't  do  it,"  said  Beaton.  "  I  couldn't  think 
of  attempting  it." 

"Why  not1?"  Dryfoos  persisted.  "We  got  some 
photographs  of  him;  he  didn't  like  to  sit  very  well; 
but  his  mother  got  him  to;  and  you  know  how  he 
looked." 

"  I  couldn't  do  it — I  couldn't.  I  can't  even  consider 

537 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW     FORTUNES 

it.  I'm  very  sorry.  I  would,  if  it  were  possible.  But 
it  isn't  possible." 

"  I  reckon  if  you  see  the  photographs  once — 

"  It  isn't  that,  Mr.  Dryfoos.  But  I'm  not  in  the 
way  of  that  kind  of  thing  any  more." 

"  I'd  give  any  price  you've  a  mind  to  name — " 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  the  money !"  cried  Beaton,  beginning 
to  lose  control  of  himself. 

The  old  man  did  not  notice  him.  He  sat  with  his 
head  fallen  forward,  and  his  chin  resting  on  his  folded 
hands.  Thinking  of  the  portrait,  he  saw  Conrad's  face 
before  him,  reproachful,  astonished,  but  all  gentle  as 
it  looked  when  Conrad  caught  his  hand  that  day  after 
he  struck  him ;  he  heard  him  say,  "  Father !"  and  the 
sweat  gathered  on  his  forehead.  "  Oh,  my  God !"  he 
groaned.  "  NTo ;  there  ain't  anything  I  can  do  now." 

Beaton  did  not  know  whether  Dryfoos  was  speaking 
to  him  or  not.  He  started  toward  him.  "  Are  you  ill  ?" 

"  No,  there  ain't  anything  the  matter,"  said  the  old 
man.  "  But  I  guess  I'll  lay  down  on  your  settee  a 
minute."  He  tottered  with  Beaton's  help  to  the  aes 
thetic  couch  covered  with  a  tiger-skin,  on  which  Beaton 
had  once  thought  of  painting  a  Cleopatra ;  but  he  could 
never  get  the  right  model.  As  the  old  man  stretched 
himself  out  on  it,  pale  and  suffering,  he  did  not  look 
much  like  a  Cleopatra,  but  Beaton  was  struck  with  his 
effectiveness,  and  the  likeness  between  him  and  his 
daughter;  she  would  make  a  very  good  Cleopatra  in 
some  ways.  All  the  time,  while  these  thoughts  passed 
through  his  mind,  he  was  afraid  Dryfoos  would  die. 
The  old  man  fetched  his  breath  in  gasps,  which  pres 
ently  smoothed  and  lengthened  into  his  normal  breath 
ing.  Beaton  got  him  a  glass  of  wine,  and  after  tasting 
it  he  sat  up. 

"  You've  got  to  excuse  me,"  he  said,  getting  back  to 

538 


A     II  YZARD    OF     NEW    FORTUNES 

his  characteristic  grimness  with  surprising  suddenness, 
when  once  he  began  to  recover  himself.  "  I've  beeii 
through  a  good  deal  lately;  and  sometimes  it  ketches 
me  round  the  heart  like  a  pain." 

In  his  life  of  selfish  immunity  from  grief,  Beaton 
could  not  understand  this  experience  that  poignant  sor 
row  brings;  he  said  to  himself  that  Dryfoos  was  going 
the  way  of  angina  pectoris;  as  he  began  shuffling  off  the 
-kin  he  said :  **  Had  yon  better  get  up  '.  Wouldn't 
you  like  me  to  call  a  dor-tor '" 

"  I'm  all  right,  young  man."  Dryfoos  took  his  hat 
and  stick  from  him,  but  he  made  for  the  door  so  un 
certainly  that  Beaton  put  his  hand  under  his  elbow  and 
helped  him  out,  and  down  the  stairs,  to  his  coupe. 

"  Hadn't  you  better  let  me  drive  home  with  you  ?" 
he  asked. 

"  What  '."  .-aid  Dryfoos.  suspiciously. 

Beaton  repeated  his  question. 

"  I  ii IK—  I'm  able  to  go  home  alone,"  said  Dryfoos, 
in  a  =urly  tone,  and  he  put  his  head  out  of  the  window 
and  called  up  "  Home!"  to  the  driver,  who  imraediate- 
rted  off  and  left  Beaton  standing  beside  the  curb 
stone.  • 


XIV 


BEATON  wasted  the  rest  of  the  clay  in  the  emotions 
and  speculations  which  Dryfoos's  call  inspired.  It  was 
not  that  they  continuously  occupied  him,  but  they  broke 
up  the  train  of  other  thoughts,  and  spoiled  him  for 
work;  a  very  little  spoiled  Beaton  for  work;  he  re 
quired  just  the  right  mood  for  work.  He  compre 
hended  perfectly  well  that  Dryfoos  had  made  him  that 
extraordinary  embassy  because  he  wished  him  to  renew 
his  visits,  and  he  easily  imagined  the  means  that  had 
brought  him  to  this  pass.  From  what  he  knew  of  that 
girl  he  did  not  envy  her  father  his  meeting  with  her 
when  he  must  tell  her  his  mission  had  failed.  But 
had  it  failed  ?  When  Beaton  came  to  ask  himself  this 
question,  he  could  only  perceive  that  he  and  Dryfoos 
had  failed  to  find  any  ground  of  sympathy,  and  had 
parted  in  the  same  dislike  with  which  they  had  met. 
But  as  to  any  other  failure,  it  was  certainly  tacit,  and 
it  still  rested  with  him  to  give  it  effect.  He  could  go 
back  to  Dryfoos's  house,  as  freely  as  before,  and  it  was 
clear  that  he  was  very  much  desired  to  come  back.  But 
if  he  went  back  it  was  also  clear  that  he  must  go  back 
with  intentions  more  explicit  than  before,  and  now  he 
had  to  ask  himself  just  how  much  or  how  little  he  had 
meant  by  going  there.  His  liking  for  Christine  had 
certainly  not  increased,  but  the  charm,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  holding  a  leopardess  in  leash  had  not  yet  palled 
upon  him.  In  his  life  of  inconstancies,  it  was  a  pleas- 

540 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

lire  to  rest  upon  something  fixed,  and  the  man  who  had 
no  control  over  himself  liked  logically  enough  to  feel 
his  control  of  some  one  else.  The  fact  cannot  other 
wise  be  put  in  terms,  and  the  attraction  which  Christine 
Dryfoos  had  for  him,  apart  from  this,  escapes  from  all 
terms,  as  anything  purely  and  merely  passional  must, 
lie  had  seen  from  the  first  that  she  was  a  cat,  and  so 
far  as  youth  forecasts  such  things,  lie  felt  that  she 
would  be  a  shrew.  But  he  had  a  perverse  sense  of 
her  beauty,  and  he  knew  a  sort  of  life  in  which  her 
power  to  molest  him  with  her  temper  could  be  reduced 
to  the  smallest  proportions,  and  even  broken  to  pieces. 
Then  the  consciousness  of  her  money  entered.  It  was 
evident  that  the  old  man  had  mentioned  his  millions 
in  the  way  of  a  hint  to  him  of  what  he  might  reason 
ably  expect  if  he  would  turn  and  be  his  son-in-law. 
Beaton  did  not  put  it  to  himself  in  those  words;  and 
in  fact  his  cogitations  were  not  in  words  at  all.  It 
was  the  play  of  cognitions,  of  sensations,  formlessly 
tending  to  the  effect  which  can  only  be  very  clumsily 
interpreted  in  language.  But  when  he  got  to  this  point 
in  them,  Beaton  rose  to  magnanimity  and  in  a  flash 
of  dramatic  reverie  disposed  of  a  part  of  Dryfoos's 
riches  in  placing  his  father  and  mother,  and  his  broth 
ers  and  sisters,  beyond  all  pecuniary  anxiety  forever. 
He  had  no  shame,  no  scruple  in  this,  for  he  had  been 
a  pensioner  upon  others  ever  since  a  Syracusan  amateur 
of  the  arts  had  detected  his  talent  and  given  him  the 
money  to  go  and  study  abroad.  Beaton  had  always 
considered  the  money  a  loan,  to  be  repaid  out  of  his 
future  success;  but  he  now  never  dreamt  of  repay 
ing  it ;  as  the  man  was  rich,  he  had  even  a  contempt  for 
the  notion  of  repaying  him;  but  this  did  not  prevent 
him  from  feeling  very  keenly  the  hardships  he  put  his 
father  to  in  borrowing  money  from  him,  though  he 

541 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

never  repaid  his  father,  either.  In  this  reverie  he  saw 
himself  sacrificed  in  marriage  with  Christine  Dryfoos, 
in  a  kind  of  admiring  self-pity,  and  he  was  melted  by 
the  spectacle  of  the  dignity  with  which  he  suffered  all 
the  lifelong  trials  ensuing  from  his  unselfishness.  The 
fancy  that  Alma  Leighton  came  bitterly  to  regret  him, 
contributed  to  soothe  and  flatter  him,  and  he  was  not 
sure  that  Margaret  Vance  did  not  suffer  a  like  loss  in 
him. 

There  had  been  times  when,  as  he  believed,  that 
beautiful  girl's  high  thoughts  had  tended  toward  him; 
there  had  been  looks,  gestures,  even  words,  that  had 
this  effect  to  him,  or  that  seemed  to  have  had  it;  and 
Beaton  saw  that  he  might  easily  construe  Mrs.  Horn's 
confidential  appeal  to  him  to  get  Margaret  interested  in 
art  again  as  something  by  no  means  necessarily  of 
fensive,  even  though  it  had  been  made  to  him  as  to  a 
master  of  illusion.  If  Mrs.  Horn  had  to  choose  be 
tween  him  and  the  life  of  good  works  to  which  her 
niece  was  visibly  abandoning  herself,  Beaton  could 
not  doubt  which  she  would  choose;  the  only  question 
was  how  real  the  danger  of  a  life  of  good  works  was. 

As  he  thought  of  these  two  girls,  one  so  charming 
and  the  other  so  divine,  it  became  indefinitely  difficult 
to  renounce  them  for  Christine  Dryfoos,  with  her  sultry 
temper  and  her  earthbound  ideals.  Life  had  been  so 
flattering  to  Beaton  hitherto  that  he  could  not  believe 
them  both  finally  indifferent ;  and  if  they  were  not  in 
different,  perhaps  he  did  not  wish  either  of  them  to  be 
very  definite.  What  he  really  longed  for  was  their 
sympathy;  for  a  man  who  is  able  to  walk  round  quite 
ruthlessly  on  the  feelings  of  others  often  has  very  ten 
der  feelings  of  his  own,  easily  lacerated,  and  eagerly 
responsive  to  the  caresses  of  compassion.  In  this  frame 
Beaton  determined  to  go  that  afternoon,  though  it  was 

542 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

not  Mrs.  Horn's  day,  and  call  upon  her  in  the  hope  of 
possibly  seeing  Miss  Vance  alone.  As  he  continued  in 
it,  he  took  this  for  a  sign  and  actually  went.  It  did 
not  fall  out  at  once  as  he  wished,,  but  he  got  Mrs.  Horn 
to  talking  again  about  her  niece,  and  Mrs.  Horn  again 
regretted  that  nothing  could  be  done  by  the  fine  arts  to 
reclaim  Margaret  from  good  works. 

"  Is  she  at  home  ?  Will  you  let  me  see  her  B"  asked 
Beaton,  with  something  of  the  scientific  interest  of  a 
physician  inquiring  for  a  patient  whose  symptoms  have 
been  rehearsed  to  him.  He  had  not  asked  for  her  be 
fore. 

"  Yes,  certainly,"  said  Mrs.  Horn,  and  she  went 
herself  to  call  Margaret,  and  she  did  not  return  with 
her.  The  girl  entered  with  the  gentle  grace  peculiar 
to  her;  and  Beaton,  bent  as  he  was  on  his  own  con 
solation,  could  not  help  being  struck  with  the  spiritual 
exaltation  of  her  look.  At  sight  of  her,  the  vague  hope 
he  had  never  quite  relinquished,  that  they  might  be 
something  more  than  aesthetic  friends,  died  in  his  heart. 
She  wore  black,  as  she  often  did;  but  in  spite  of  its 
fashion  her  dress  received  a  nun-like  effect  from  the 
pensive  absence  of  her  face.  "  Decidedly,"  thought 
Beaton,  "  she  is  far  gone  in  good  works." 

But  he  rose,  all  the  same,  to  meet  her  on  the  old 
level,  and  he  began  at  once  to  talk  to  her  of  the  subject 
he  had  been  discussing  with  her  aunt.  He  said  frank 
ly  that  they  both  felt  she  had  unjustifiably  turned 
her  back  upon  possibilities  which  she  ought  not  to 
neglect. 

"  You  know  very  well,"  she  answered,  "  that  I 
couldn't  do  anything  in  that  way  worth  the  time  I 
should  waste  on  it.  Don't  talk  of  it,  please.  I  sup 
pose  my  aunt  has  been  asking  you  to  say  this,  but  it's 
no  use.  I'm  sorry  it's  no  use,  she  wishes  it  so  much; 

543 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

but  I'm  not  sorry  otherwise.  You  can  find  the  pleas 
ure  at  least  of  doing  good  work  in  it ;  but  I  couldn't 
find  anything  in  it  but  a  barren  amusement.  Mr.  Wet- 
more 'is  right;  for  me,  it's  like  enjoying  an  opera,  or 
a  ball." 

"  That's  one  of  Wetrnore's  phrases.  He'd  sacrifice 
anything  to  them."' 

She  put  aside  the  whole  subject  with  a  look.  "  You 
were  not  at  Mr.  Dryfoos's  the  other  day.  Have  you 
seen  them,  any  of  them,  lately  ?" 

"  I  haven't  been  there  for  some  time,  no,"  said  Bea 
ton,  evasively.  But  he  thought  if  he  was  to  get  on  to 
anything,  he  had  better  be  candid.  "  Mr.  Dryfoos  was 
at  my  studio  this  morning.  He's  got  a  queer  notion. 
He  wants  me  to  paint  his  son's  portrait." 

She  started.     "  And  will  you — " 

"  !N"o,  I  couldn't  do  such  a  thing.  It  isn't  in  my 
way.  I  told  him  so.  His  son  had  a  beautiful  face — 
an  antique  profile;  a  sort  of  early  Christian  type;  but 
I'm  too  much  of  a  pagan  for  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  Yes." 

"  Yes,"  Beaton  continued,  not  quite  liking  her  assent 
after  he  had  invited  it.  He  had  his  pride  in  being  a 
pagan,  a  Greek,  but  it  failed  him  in  her  presence,  now ; 
and  he  wished  that  she  had  protested  he  was  none. 
"  He  was  a  singular  creature ;  a  kind  of  survival ;  an 
exile  in  our  time  and  place.  I  don't  know:  we  don't 
quite  expect  a  saint  to  be  rustic ;  but  with  all  his  good 
ness  Conrad  Dryfoos  was  a  country  person.  If  he  were 
not  dying  for  a  cause  you  could  imagine  him  milk 
ing."  Beaton  intended  a  contempt  that  came  from  the 
bitterness  of  having  himself  once  milked  the  family 
cow. 

His  contempt  did  not  reach  Miss  Vance.     "He  died 

for  a  cause,"  she  said.     "  The  holiest." 

544 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Of  labor  ?" 

"  Of  peace.  He  was  there  to  persuade  the  strikers 
to  be  quiet  and  go  home." 

"  I  haven't  been  quite  sure,1'  said  Beaton.  "  But  in 
any  case  he  had  no  business  there.  The  police  were 
mi  hand  to  do  the  persuading." 

"I  can't  let  you  talk  so!"  cried  the  girl.  "It's 
shocking!  Oh,  I  know  it's  the  way  people  talk,  and 
the  worst  is  that  in  the  sight  of  the  world  it's  the  right 
way.  But  the  blessing  on  the  peacemakers  is  not  for 
the  policemen  with  their  clubs." 

Beaton  saw  that  she  was  nervous;  he  made  his  re 
flection  that  she  was  altogether  too  far  gone  in  good 
works  for  the  fine  arts  to  reach  her ;  he  began  to  think 
how  he  could  turn  her  primitive  Christianity  to  the 
account  of  his  modern  heathenism.  He  had  no  deeper 
design  than  to  get  flattered  back  into  his  own  favor 
far  enough  to  find  courage  for  some  sort  of  decisive 
step.  In  his  heart  he  was  trying  to  will  whether  he 
should  or  should  not  go  back  to  Dryfoos's  house.  It 
could  not  be  from  the  caprice  that  had  formerly  taken 
him;  it  must  be  from  a  definite  purpose;  again  he 
realized  this.  "  Of  course ;  you  are  right,"  he  said. 
"  I  wish  I  could  have  answered  that  old  man  different 
ly.  I  fancy  he  was  bound  up  in  his  son,  though  he 
quarrelled  with  him,  and  crossed  him.  But  I  couldn't 
do  it;  it  wasn't  possible."  He  said  to  himself  that  if 
she  said  "  No,"  now,  he  would  be  ruled  by  her  agree 
ment  with  him;  and  if  she  disagreed  with  him,  he 
would  be  ruled  still  by  the  chance,  and  would  go  no 
more  to  the  Dryfooses'.  He  found  himself  embarrassed 
to  the  point  of  blushing  when  she  said  nothing,  and 
left  him,  as  it  were,  on  his  own  hands.  "  I  should  like 
to  have  given  him  that  comfort ;  I  fancy  he  hasn't  much 
comfort  in  life;  but  there  seems  no  comfort  in  me." 

545 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

He  dropped  his  head  in  a  fit  attitude  for  compassion ; 
but  she  poured  no  pity  upon  it. 

"  There  is  no  comfort  for  us  in  ourselves,"  she  said. 
"  It's  hard  to  get  outside ;  but  there's  only  despair 
within.  When  we  think  we  have  done  something  for 
others,  by  some  great  effort,  we  find  it's  all  for  our  own 
vanity." 

"  Yes,"  said  Beaton.  "  If  I  could  paint  pictures  for 
righteousness'  sake,  I  should  have  been  glad  to  do  Con 
rad  Dryfoos  for  his  father.  I  felt  sorry  for  him.  Did 
the  rest  seem  very  much  broken  up?  You  saw  them 
all  ?" 

"  Not  all.  Miss  Dryfoos  was  ill,  her  sister  said. 
It's  hard  to  tell  how  much  people  suffer.  His  mother 
seemed  bewildered.  The  younger  sister  is  a  simple 
creature;  she  looks  like  him;  I  think  she  must  have 
something  of  his  spirit." 

"  Not  much  spirit  of  any  kind,  I  imagine,"  said 
Beaton.  "  But  she's  amiably  material.  Did  they  say 
Miss  Dryfoos  was  seriously  ill  ?" 

"  No.  I  supposed  she  might  be  prostrated  by  her 
brother's  death." 

"  Does  she  seem  that  kind  of  person  to  you,  Miss 
Vance?"  asked  Beaton. 

"  I  don't  know.  I  haven't  tried  to  see  so  much  of 
them  as  I  might,  the  past  winter.  I  was  not  sure  about 
her  when  I  met  her;  I've  never  seen  much  of  people, 
except  in  my  own  set,  and  the — very  poor.  I  have  been 
afraid  I  didn't  understand  her.  She  may  have  a  kind 
of  pride  that  would  not  let  her  do  herself  justice." 

Beaton  felt  the  unconscious  dislike  in  the  endeavor 
of  praise.  "  Then  she  seems  to  you  like  a  person  whose 
life — its  trials,  its  chances — would  make  more  of  than 
she  is  now  ?" 

"  I  didn't  say  that.     I  can't  judge  of  her  at  all ;  but 

546 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

where  we  don't  know,  don't  yon  think  we  ought  to  im 
agine  the  best  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Beaton.  "  I  didn't  know  but  what  I 
once  said  of  them  might  have  prejudiced  you  against 
them.  I  have  accused  myself  of  it."  He  always  took 
a  tone  of  conscientiousness,  of  self-censure,  in  talking 
with  Miss  Vance ;  he  could  not  help  it. 

"  Oh  no.  And  I  never  allowed  myself  to  form  any 
judgment  of  her.  She  is  very  pretty,  don't  you  think, 
in  a  kind  of  way?" 

"  Very." 

"She  has  a  beautiful  brunette  coloring:  that  floury 
white  and  the  delicate  pink  in  it.  Her  eyes  are  beau 
tiful." 

"  She's  graceful,  too,"  said  Beaton.  "  I've  tried  her 
in  color;  but  I  didn't  make  it  out," 

"  I've  wondered  sometimes,"  said  Miss  Vance, 
"  whether  that  elusive  quality  you  find  in  some  peo 
ple  you  try  to  paint  doesn't  characterize  them  all 
through.  Miss  Dryfoos  might  be  ever  so  much  finer 
and  better  than  we  would  find  out  in  the  society  way 
that  seems  the  only  way." 

"  Perhaps,"  said  Beaton,  gloomily ;  and  he  went 
away  profoundly  discouraged  by  this  last  analysis  of 
Christine's  character.  The  angelic  imperviousness  of 
Miss  Vance  to  properties  of  which  his  own  wickedness 
was  so  keenly  aware  in  Christine  might  have  made  him 
laugh,  if  it  had  not  been  such  a  serious  affair  with  him. 
As  it  was,  he  smiled  to  think  how  very  differently  Alma 
Leighton  would  have  judged  her  from  Miss  Vance's 
premises.  He  liked  that  clear  vision  of  Alma's  even 
when  it  pierced  his  own  disguises.  Yes,  that  was  the 
light  he  had  let  die  out,  and  it  might  have  shone  upon 
his  path  through  life.  Beaton  never  felt  so  poignantly 
the  disadvantage  of  having  on  any  given  occasion  been 

^ 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

wanting  to  his  own  interests  through  his  self-love  ;is 
in  this.  He  had  no  one  to  blame  but  himself  for  what 
had  happened,  but  he  blamed  Alma  for  what  might 
happen  in  the  future  because  she  shut  out  the  way  of 
retrieval  and  return.  When  he  thought  of  the  attitude 
she  had  taken  toward  him,  it  seemed  incredible,  and 
he  was  always  longing  to  give  her  a  final  chance  to 
reverse  her  final  judgment.  It  appeared  to  him  that 
the  time  had  come  for  this  now,  if  ever. 


XV 


WHILE  we  are  still  young  we  feel  a  kind  of  pride, 
a  sort  of  fierce  pleasure,  in  any  important  experience, 
such  as  we  have  read  of  or  heard  of  in  the  lives  of 
others,  no  matter  how  painful.  It  was  this  pride,  this 
pleasure,  which  Beaton  now  felt  in  realizing  that  the 
toils  of  fate  were  about  him,  that  between  him  and  a 
future  of  which  Christine  Dryfoos  must  be  the  genius 
there  was  nothing  but  the  will,  the  mood,  the  fancy 
of  a  girl  who  had  not  given  him  the  hope  that  either 
could  ever  again  be  in  his  favor.  He  had  nothing  to 
trust  to,  in  fact,  but  his  knowledge  that  he  had  once 
had  them  all;  she  did  not  deny  that;  but  neither  did 
she  conceal  that  he  had  Hung  away  his  power  over  them, 
and  she  had  told  him  that  they  never  could  be  his  again. 
A  man  knows  that  he  can  love  and  wholly  cease  to 
love,  not  once  merely,  but  several  times;  he  recognizes 
the  fact  in  regard  to  himself,  both  theoretically  and 
practically;  but  in  regard  to  women  he  cherishes  the 
superstition  of  the  romances  that  love  is  once  for  all, 
and  forever.  It  was  because  Beaton  would  not  believe 
that  Alma  Leighton,  being  a  woman,  could  put  him 
out  of  her  heart  after  suffering  him  to  steal  into  it, 
that  he  now  hoped  anything  from  her,  and  she  had 
been  so  explicit  when  they  last  spoke  of  that  affair  that 
he  did  not  hope  much.  He  said  to  himself  that  he 
was  going  to  cast  himself  on  her  mercy,  to  take  what 
ever  chance  of  life,  love,  and  work  there  was  in  her 
having  the  smallest  pity  -on  him.  If  she  would  have 

549 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

none,  then  there  was  but  one  thing  he  could  do :  marry 
Christine  and  go  abroad.  He  did  not  see  how  he  could 
bring  this  alternative  to  bear  upon  Alma;  even  if  she 
knew  what  he  would  do  in  case  of  a  final  rejection,  he 
had  grounds  for  fearing  she  would  not  care;  but  he 
brought  it  to  bear  upon  himself,  and  it  nerved  him  to 
a  desperate  courage.  He  could  hardly  wait  for  evening 
to  come,  before  he  went  to  see  her;  when  it  came,  it 
seemed  to  have  come  too  soon.  He  had  wrought  him 
self  thoroughly  into  the  conviction  that  he  was  in  ear 
nest,  and  that  everything  depended  upon  her  answer  to 
him,  but  it  was  not  till  he  found  himself  in  her  pres 
ence,  and  alone  with  her,  that  he  realized  the  truth  of 
his  conviction.  Then  the  influences  of  her  grace,  her 
gayety,  her  arch  beauty,  above  all,  her  good  sense, 
penetrated  his  soul  like  a  subtle  intoxication,  and  he 
said  to  himself  that  he  was  right;  he  could  not  live 
without  her;  these  attributes  of  hers  were  what  he 
needed  to  win  him,  to  cheer  him,  to  charm  him,  to 
guide  him.  He  longed  so  to  please  her,  to  ingratiate 
himself  with  her,  that  he  attempted  to  be  light  like 
her  in  his  talk,  but  lapsed  into  abysmal  absences  and 
gloomy  recesses  of  introspection. 

"  What  are  you  laughing  at  ?"  he  asked,  suddenly 
starting  from  one  of  these. 

"  What  you  are  thinking  of." 

"  It's  nothing  to  laugh  at.  Do  you  know  what  it  is 
I'm  thinking  of  ?" 

"  Don't  tell,  if  it's  dreadful." 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  you  wouldn't  think  it's  dreadful," 
he  said,  with  bitterness.  "  It's  simply  the  case  of  a 
man  who  has  made  a  fool  of  himself  and  sees  no  help 
of  retrieval  in  himself." 

u  Can  any  one  else  help  a  man  unmake  a  fool  of 
himself?"  she  asked,  with  a  smile. 

550 


A    HAZARD    OF     NEW    FORTUNES 

"  Yes.     In  a  case  like  this." 

"Dear  me!     This  is  very  interesting." 

She  did  not  ask  him  what  the  case  was,  but  he  was 
launched  now,  and  he  pressed  on.  "  I  am  the  man  who 
has  made  a  fool  of  himself — " 

"  Oh !" 

"  And  you  can  help  me  out  if  you  will.  Alma,  I 
wish  you  could  see  me  as  I  really  am." 

"  Do  you,  Mr.  Beaton  ?     Perhaps  I  do." 

"  No ;  you  don't.  You  formulated  me  in  a  cer 
tain  way,  and  you  won't  allow  for  the  change  that 
takes  place  in  every  one.  You  have  changed;  why 
shouldn't  I?" 

"  Has  this  to  do  with  vour  having  made  a  fool  of 
yourself?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Oh !     Then  I  don't  see  how  you  have  changed." 

She  laughed,  and  he  too,  ruefully.  u  You're  cruel. 
Not  but  what  I  deserve  your  mockery.  But  the  change 
was  not  from  the  capacity  of  making  va  fool  of  myself. 
I  suppose  I  shall  always  do  that  more  or  less — unless 
you  help  me.  Alma !  Why  can't  you  have  a  little 
compassion  ?  You  know  that  I  must  always  love  you." 

"  Nothing  makes  me  doubt  that  like  your  saying  it, 
Mr.  Beaton.  But  now  you've  broken  your  word — " 

"  You  are  to  blame  for  that.  You  knew  T  couldn't 
keep  it!" 

"  Yes,  I'm  to  blame.  I  was  wrong  to  let  you  come 
— after  that.  And  so  I  forgive  you  for  speaking  to  me 
in  that  way  again.  But  it's  perfectly  impossible  and 
perfectly  useless  for  me  to  hear  you  any  more  on  that 
subject;  and  so — good-bye!" 

She  rose,  and  he  perforce  with  her.  "  And  do  you 
mean  it  ?"  he  asked.  "  Forever  ?" 

"  Forever.     This  is  truly  the  last  time  T  will  ever 

551 


A    HAZARD    OP    NEW    FORTUNES 

see  you  if  I  can  help  it.  Oh,  I  feel  sorry  enough  for 
you !"  she  said,  with  a  glance  at  his  face.  "  I  do  be 
lieve  you  are  in  earnest.  But  it's  too  late  now.  Don't 
let  us  talk  about  it  any  more!  But  we  shall,  if  we 
meet,  and  so — 

"  And  so  good-bye !  Well,  I've  nothing  more  to  say, 
and  I  might  as  well  say  that.  I  think  you've  been  very 
good  to  me.  It  seems  to  me  as  if  you  had  been — shall 
I  say  it  ? — trying  to  give  me  a  chance.  Is  that  so  ?" 

She  dropped  her  eyes  and  did  not  answer. 

"  You  found  it  was  no  use !  Well,  I  thank  you  for 
trying.  It's  curious  to  think  that  I  once  had  your 
trust,  your  regard,  and  now  I  haven't  it.  You  don't 
mind  my  remembering  that  I  had  ?  It  '11  be  some  little 
consolation,  and  I  believe  it  will  be  some  help.  I  know 
I  can't  retrieve  the  past  now.  It  is  too  late.  It  seems 
too  preposterous — perfectly  lurid — that  I  could  have 
been  going  to  tell  you  what  a  tangle  I'd  got  myself  in, 
and  to  ask  you  to  help  untangle  me.  I  must  choke  in 
the  infernal  coil,  but  I'd  like  to  have  the  sweetness  of 
your  pity  in  it — whatever  it  is." 

She  put  out  her  hand.  "  Whatever  it  is,  I  do  pity 
you ;  I  said  that." 

"  Thank  you."  He  kissed  the  hand  she  gave  him 
and  went. 

He  had  gone  on  some  such  terms  before ;  was  it  now 
for  the  last  time?  She  believed  it  was.  She  felt  in 
herself  a  satiety,  a  fatigue,  in  which  his  good  looks,  his 
invented  airs  and  poses,  his  real  trouble,  were  all  alike 
repulsive.  She  did  not  acquit  herself  of  the  wrong  of 
having  let  him  think  she  might  yet  have  liked  him  as 
she  once  did;  but  she  had  been  honestly  willing  to  see 
whether  she  could.  It  had  mystified  her  to  find  that 
when  they  first  met  in  Xew  York,  after  their  summer 
in  St.  Barnaby,  she  cared  nothing  for  him;  she  had 

552 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

expected  to  punish  him  for  his  neglect,  and  then  fancy 
him  as  hefore,  but  she  did  not.  More  and  more  she 
saw  him  selfish  and  mean,  weak-willed,  narrow-minded, 
and  hard-hearted ;  and  aimless,  with  all  his  talent.  She 
admired  his  talent  in  proportion  as  she  learned  more  of 
artists,  and  perceived  how  uncommon  it  was;  but  she 
said  to  herself  that  if  she  were  going  to  devote  herself 
to  art,  she  would  do  it  at  first-hand.  She  was  perfectly 
serene  and  happy  in  her  final  rejection  of  Beaton;  he 
had  worn  out  not  only  her  fancy,  but  her  sympathy,  too. 

This  was  what  her  mother  would  not  believe  when 
Alma  reported  the  interview  to  her;  she  would  not  be 
lieve  it  was  the  last  time  they  should  meet ;  death  itself 
can  hardly  convince  us  that  it  is  the  last  time  of  any 
thing,  of  everything  between  ourselves  and  the  dead. 
"  Well,  Alma,77  she  said,  "  I  hope  you'll  never  regret 
what  you've  done." 

"  You  may  be  sure  I  shall  not  regret  it.  If  ever 
I'm  low-spirited  about  anything,  I'll  think  of  giving 
Mr.  Beaton  his  freedom,  and  that  will  cheer  me  up." 

"  And  don't  you  expect  to  get  married  ?  Do  you  in 
tend  to  be  an  old  maid  ?"  demanded  her  mother,  in  the 
bonds  of  the  superstition  women  have  so  long  been  un 
der  to  the  effect  that  every  woman  must  wish  to  get 
married,  if  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  avoid  being  an 
old  maid. 

"  Well,  mamma,"  said  Alma,  "  I  intend  being  a 
young  one  for  a  few  years  yet;  and  then  I'll  see.  If 
I  meet  the  right  person,  all  well  and  good ;  if  not,  not. 
But  I  shall  pick  and  choose,  as  a  man  does ;  I  won't 
merely  be  picked  and  chosen." 

"  You  can't  help  yourself ;  you  may  be  very  glad  if 
you  are  picked  and  chosen." 

"  What  nonsense,  mamma !  A  girl  can  get  any  man 
she  wants,  if  she  goes  about  it  the  right  way.  And 

553 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

when  my  i  fated  fairy  prince '  comes  along,  I  shall  just 
simply  make  furious  love  to  him  and  grab  him.  Of 
course,  I  shall  make  a  decent  pretence  of  talking  in 
my  sleep.  I  believe  it's  done  that  way  more  than  half 
the  time.  The  fated  fairy  prince  wouldn't  see  the 
princess  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  if  she  didn't  say  some 
thing;  he  would  go  mooning  along  after  the  maids  of 
honor." 

Mrs.  Leighton  tried  to  look  unspeakable  horror;  but 
she  broke  down  and  laughed.  "  Well,  you  are  a  strange 
girl,  Alma." 

"  I  don't  know  about  that.  But  one  thing  I  do  know, 
mamma,  and  that  is  that  Prince  Beaton  isn't  the  F.  F. 
P.  for  me.  How  strange  you  are,  mamma !  Don't  you 
think  it  would  be  perfectly  disgusting  to  accept  a  per 
son  you  didn't  care  for,  and  let  him  go  on  and  love  you 
and  marry  you  ?  It's  sickening." 

"  Why,  certainly,  Alma.  It's  only  because  I  know 
you  did  care  fo^  him  once — " 

u  And  now  I  don't.  And  he  didn't  care  for  me  once, 
and  now  he  does.  And  so  we're  quits.'' 

•'  If  I  could  believe— 

"  You  had  better  brace  up  and  try,  mamma ;  for  as 
Mr.  Fulkerson  says,  it's  as  sure  as  guns.  From  the 
crown  of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his  foot,  he's  loathsome 
to  me ;  and  he  keeps  getting  loathsomer.  Ugh  !  Good 
night!" 


XVI 

"  WELL,  I  guess  she's  given  him  the  grand  bounce 
at  last,"  said  Fulkerson  to  March  in  one  of  their  mo 
ments  of  confidence  at  the  office.  "  That's  Mad's  in 
ference  from  appearances  —  and  disappearances ;  and 
some  little  hints  from  Ma  Leigh  ton." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  have  any  criticisms  to 
offer/'  said  March.  "  It  may  be  bad  for  Beaton,  but 
it's  a  very  good  thing  for  Miss  Leighton.  Upon  the 
whole,  I  believe  I  congratulate  her." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  I  always  kind  of  hoped  it 
would  turn  out  the  other  way.  You  know  I  always  had 
a  sneaking  fondness  for  the  fellow." 

"  Miss  Leighton  seems  not  to  have  had." 

"  It's  a  pity  she  hadn't.  I  tell  you,  March,  it  ain't 
so  easy  for  a  girl  to  get  married,  here  in  the  East,  that 
she  can  afford  to  despise  any  chance." 

"  Isn't  that  rather  a  low  view  of  it?" 

"  It's  a  common-sense  view.  Beaton  has  the  making 
of  a  first-rate  fellow  in  him.  He's  the  raw  material 
of  a  great  artist  and  a  good  citizen.  All  he  wants  is 
somebody  to  take  him  in  hand  and  keep  him  from 
makin'  an  ass  of  himself  and  kickin'  over  the  traces 
generally,  and  ridin'  two  or  three  horses  bareback  at 
once." 

"  It  seems  a  simple  problem,  though  the  metaphor 
is  rather  complicated,"  said  March.  "  But  talk  to  Miss 
Leighton  about  it.  7  haven't  given  Beaton  the  grand 
bounce." 

555 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

lie  began  to  turn  over  the  manuscripts  on  his  table, 
and  Fnlkerson  went  away.  But  March  found  himself 
thinking  of  the  matter  from  time  to  time  during  the 
day,  and  he  spoke  to  his  wife  about  it  when  he  went, 
home.  She  surprised  him  by  taking  Fulkerson's  view 
of  it, 

"  Yes,  it's  a  pity  she  couldn't  have  made  up  her 
mind  to  have  him.  It's  better  for  a  woman  to  be 
married." 

"  I  thought  Paul  only  went  so  far  as  to  say  it  was 
well.  But  what  would  become  of  Miss  Leighton's 
artistic  career  if  she  married  ?" 

"Oh,  her  artistic  career!"  said  Mrs.  March,  with 
matronly  contempt  of  it. 

"  But  look  here !"  cried  her  husband.  "  Suppose  she 
doesn't  like  him  ?" 

u  How  can  a  girl  of  that  age  tell  whether  she  likes 
any  one  or  not?" 

"  It  seems  to  me  you  were  able  to  tell  at  that  age, 
Isabel.  But  let's  examine  this  thing.  (This  thing! 
I  believe  Fulkerson  is  characterizing  my  whole  par 
lance,  as  well  as  your  morals.)  Why  shouldn't  we  re 
joice  as  much  at  a  non-marriage  as  a  marriage  ?  When 
we  consider  the  enormous  risks  people  take  in  linking 
their  lives  together,  after  not  half  so  much  thought  as 
goes  to  an  ordinary  horse  trade,  I  think  we  ought  to 
be  glad  whenever  they  don't  do  it.  I  believe  that  this 
popular  demand  for  the  matrimony  of  others  comes 
from  our  novel-reading.  We  get  to  thinking  that  there 
is  no  other  happiness  or  good  -  fortune  in  life  except 
marriage;  and  it's  offered  in  fiction  as  the  highest 
premium  for  virtue,  courage,  beauty,  learning,  and 
saving  human  life.  We  all  know  it  isn't.  We  know 
that  in  reality  marriage  is  dog  cheap,  and  anybody  can 
have  it  for  the  asking  —  if  he  keeps  asking  enough 

55G 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

people.  By-and-by  some  fellow  will  wake  up  and  see 
that  a  first-class  story  can  be  written  from  the  anti- 
marriage  point  of  view;  and  he'll  begin  with  an  en 
gaged  couple,  and  devote  his  novel  to  disengaging  them 
and  rendering  them  separately  happy  ever  after  in  the 
denouement.  It  will  make  his  everlasting  fortune." 

"  Why  don't  you  write  it,  Basil  ?"  she  asked.  "  It's 
a  delightful  idea.  You  could  do  it  splendidly." 

He  became  fascinated  with  the  notion.  He  de 
veloped  it  in  detail;  but  at  the  end  he  sighed  and 
said:  "With  this  Every  Other  Week  work  on  my 
hands,  of  course  I  can't  attempt  a  novel.  But  per 
haps  I  sha'n't  have  it  long." 

She  was  instantly  anxious  to  know  what  lie  meant, 
and  the  novel  and  Miss  Leighton's  affair  were  both 
dropped  out  of  their  thoughts.  "  What  do  you  mean  ? 
Has  Mr.  Fulkerson  said  anything  yet  ?" 

"  Not  a  word.  He  knows  no  more  about  it  than  I 
do.  Dryfoos  hasn't  spoken,  and  we're  both  afraid  to 
ask  him.  Of  course,  I  couldn't  ask  him." 

"  No." 

"  But  it's  pretty  uncomfortable,  to  be  kept  hanging 
by  the  gills  so,  as  Fulkerson  says." 

"  Yes,  we  don't  know  what  to  do." 

March  and  Fulkerson  said  the  same  to  each  other ; 
and  Fulkerson  said  that  if  the  old  man  pulled  out,  he 
did  not  know  what  would  happen.  He  had  no  capital 
to  carry  the  thing  on,  and  the  very  fact  that  the  old 
man  had  pulled  out  would  damage  it  so  that  it  would 
be  hard  to  get  anybody  else  to  put  it.  In  the  mean 
time  Fulkerson  was  running  Conrad's  office-work,  when 
he  ought  to  be  looking  after  the  outside  interests  of  the 
thing;  and  he  could  not  see  the  day  when  he  could  get 
married. 

"  I   don't  know  which   it's  worse  for,  March :  you 

557 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

or  me.  I  don't  know,  under  the  circumstances,  whether 
it's  worse  to  have  a  family  or  to  want  to  have  one.  Of 
course — of  course !  We  can't  hurry  the  old  man  up. 
It  wouldn't  be  decent,  and  it  would  be  dangerous.  We 
got  to  wait." 

He  almost  decided  to  draw  upon  Dryfoos  for  some 
money;  he  did  not  need  any,  but  he  said  maybe  the 
demand  would  act  as  a  hint  upon  him.  One  day,  about 
a  week  after  Alma's  final  rejection  of  Beaton,  Dryfoos 
came  into  March's  office.  Fulkerson  wras  out,  but  the 
old  man  seemed  not  to  have  tried  to  see  him. 

He  put  his  hat  on  the  floor  by  his  chair,  after  he 
sat  down,  and  looked  at  March  awhile  with  his  old 
eyes,  which  had  the  vitreous  glitter  of  old  eyes  stimu 
lated  to  sleeplessness.  Then  he  said,  abruptly,  "  Mr. 
March,  how  would  you  like  to  take  this  thing  off  my 
hands  ?" 

"  I  don't  understand,  exactly,"  March  began ;  but 
of  course  he  understood  that  Dryfoos  was  offering  to 
let  him  have  Every  Other  Week  on  some  terms  or  other, 
and  his  heart  leaped  with  hope. 

The  old  man  knew  he  understood,  and  so  he  did  not 
explain.  He  said :  "  I  am  going  to  Europe,  to  take  my 
family  there.  The  doctor  thinks  it  might  do  my  wife 
some  good ;  and  I  ain't  very  well  myself,  and  my  girls 
both  want  to  go;  and  so  we're  goin'.  If  you  want  to 
take  this  thing  off  my  hands,  I  reckon  I  can  let  you 
have  it  in  'most  any  shape  you  say.  You're  all  settled 
here  in  !N"ew  York,  and  I  don't  suppose  you  want  to 
break  up,  much,  at  your  time  of  life,  and  I've  been 
thinkin'  whether  you  wouldn't  like  to  take  the  thing." 

The  word,  which  Dryfoos  had  now  used  three  times, 
made  March  at  last  think  of  Fulkerson ;  he  had  been 
filled  too  full  of  himself  to  think  of  any  one  else  till 
he  had  mastered  the  notion  of  such  wonderful  good- 

558 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

fortune  as  seemed  about  falling  to  him.  But  now  he 
did  think  of  Fulkerson,  and  with  some  shame  and  con 
fusion  ;  for  he  remembered  how,  when  Dryfoos  had 
last  approached  him  there  on  the  business  of  his  con 
nection  with  Every  Oilier  Week,  he  had  been  very 
haughty  with  him,  and  told  him  that  he  did  not  know 
him  in  this  connection.  ITe  blushed  to  find  how  far 
his  thoughts  had  now  run  without  encountering  this 
obstacle  of  etiquette. 

"  Have  you  spoken  to  Mr.  Fulkerson  ?"  he  asked. 

"  Xo,  I  hain't.  It  ain't  a  question  of  management. 
It's  a  question  of  buying  and  selling.  I  offer  the  thing 
to  you  first.  I  reckon  Fulkerson  couldn't  get  on  very 
well  without  you." 

March  saw  the  real  difference  in  the  two  cases,  and 
lie  was  glad  to  see  it,  hecause  he  could  act  more  de 
cisively  if  not  hampered  by  an  obligation  to  consistency. 
"  I  am  gratified,  of  course,  Mr.  Dryfoos ;  extremely 
gratified;  and  it's  no  use  pretending  that  I  shouldn't 
be  happy  beyond  bounds  to  get  possession  of  Every 
Other  Week.  But  I  don't  feel  quite  free  to  talk  about 
it  apart  from  Mr.  Fulkerson." 

"  Oh,  all  right !"  said  the  old  man,  with  quick  offence. 

March  hastened  to  say :  "  I  feel  bound  to  Mr.  Ful 
kerson  in  every  way.  He  got  me  to  come  here,  and  I 
couldn't  even  seem  to  act  without  him." 

He  put  it  questioningly,  and  the  old  man  answered : 
"  Yes,  I  can  see  that.  When  '11  he  be  in  ?  I  can  wait." 
But  he  looked  impatient. 

"  Very  soon,  now,"  said  March,  looking  at  his  watch. 
"  He  was  only  to  be  gone  a  moment,"  and  while  he 
went  on  to  talk  with  Dryfoos,  he  wondered  why  the 
old  man  should  have  come  first  to  speak  with  him,  and 
whether  it  was  from  some  obscure  wish  to  make  him 
reparation  for  displeasures  in  the  past,  or  from  a  dis- 

559 


A     HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

trust  or  dislike  of  Fulkerson.  Whichever  light  he  look 
ed  at  it  in,  it  was  flattering. 

"  Do  you  think  of  going  abroad  soon  ?"  he  asked. 

"\Yluit*  Yes — I  don't  know — I  reckon.  We  got 
our  passage  engaged.  It's  on  one  of  them  French  boats. 
We're  goiii'  to  Paris." 

"  Oh !  That  will  be  interesting  to  the  young 
ladies." 

"  Yes.  I  reckon  we're  goin'  for  them.  'Tairi't  likely 
my  wife  and  me  would  want  to  pull  up  stakes  at  our 
age,"  said  the  old  man,  sorrowfully. 

"  But  you  may  find  it  do  you  good,  Mr.  Dryfoos," 
said  March,  with  a  kindness  that  was  real,  mixed  as 
it  was  with  the  selfish  interest  he  now  had  in  the  in 
tended  voyage. 

"  Well,  maybe,  maybe,"  sighed  the  old  man ;  and  lie 
dropped  his  head  forward.  "  It  don't  make  a  great 
deal  of  difference  what  we  do  or  we  don't  do,  for  the 
few  years  left." 

"  I  hope  Mrs.  Dryfoos  is  as  well  as  usual."  said 
March,  finding  the  ground  delicate  and  difficult. 

"  Middlin',  middlin',"  said  the  old  man.  "My 
daughter  Christine,  she  ain't  very  well." 

"  Oh,"  said  March.  It  was  quite  impossible  for  him 
to  affect  a  more  explicit  interest  in  the  fact.  He  and 
Dryfoos  sat  silent  for  a  few  moments,  and  he  was  vain 
ly  casting  about  in  his  thought  for  something  else  which 
would  tide  them  over  the  interval  till  Fulkerson  came, 
when  he  heard  his  step  on  the  stairs. 

"  Hello,  hello !"  he  said.  "  Meeting  of  the  clans !" 
It  was  always  a  meeting  of  the  clans,  with  Fulkerson, 
or  a  field  day,  or  an  extra  session,  or  a  regular  con 
clave,  whenever  he  saw  people  of  any  common  interest 
together.  "  Hain't  seen  yon  here  for  a  good  while,  Mr. 
Dryfoos.  Did  think  some  of  running  away  with  Every 

560 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Other  Week  one  while,  but  couldn't  seem  to  work  March 
up  to  the  point." 

He  gave  Dryfoos  his  hand,  and  pushed  aside  the 
papers  on  the  corner  of  March's  desk,  and  sat  down 
there,  and  went  on  briskly  with  the  nonsense  he  could 
always  talk  while  he  was  waiting  for  another  to  de 
velop  any  matter  of  business ;  he  told  March  afterward 
that  he  scented  business  in  the  air  as  soon  as  he  came 
into  the  room  where  he  and  Dryfoos  were  sitting. 

Dryfoos  seemed  determined  to  leave  the  word  to 
March,  who  said,  after  an  inquiring  look  at  him, 
"  Mr.  Dryfoos  has  been  proposing  to  let  us  have 
Every  Oilier  Week,  Fulkerson." 

"Well,  that's  good;  that  suits  yours  truly;  March 
&  Fulkerson,  publishers  and  proprietors,  won't  pretend 
it  don't,  if  the  terms  are  all  right." 

"  The  terms,"  said  the  old  man,  "  are  whatever  you 
want  'em.  I  haven't  got  any  more  use  for  the  con 
cern —  He  gulped,  and  stopped ;  they  knew  what  he 
was  thinking  of,  and  they  looked  down  in  pity.  He 
went  on :  "I  won't  put  any  more  money  in  it ;  but  what 
I've  put  in  a'ready  can  stay ;  and  you  can  pay  me  four 
per  cent." 

He  got  upon  his  feet;  and  March  and  Fulkerson 
stood,  too. 

"  Well,  I  call  that  pretty  white,"  said  Fulkerson. 
"  It's  a  bargain  as  far  as  I'm  concerned.  I  suppose 
you'll  want  to  talk  it  over  with  your  wife,  March?" 

"  Yes ;  I  shall,"  said  March.  "  I  can  see  that  it's 
a  great  chance;  but  I  want  to  talk  it  over  with  my 
wife." 

"  Well,  that's  right,"  said  the  old  man.  "  Let  me 
hear  from  you  to-morrow." 

He  went  out,  and  Fulkerson  began  to  dance  round 
the  room.  He  caught  March  about  his  stalwart  girth 

561 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

and  tried  to  make  him  waltz;  the  office-boy  came  to 
the  door  and  looked  011  with  approval. 

"  Come,  come,  you  idiot !"  said  March,  rooting  him 
self  to  the  carpet. 

"  It's  just  throwing  the  thing  into  our  mouths,"  said 
Fulkerson.  "  The  wedding  will  be  this  day  week. 
No  cards !  Teedle-lmnpty-diddle  !  Teedle-lumpty-dee  I 
What  do  you  suppose  he  means  by  it,  March  ?"  he  ask 
ed,  bringing  himself  soberly  up,  of  a  sudden.  "  What 
is  his  little  game  ?  Or  is  he  crazy  ?  It  don't  seem  like 
the  Dryfoos  of  itry  previous  acquaintance." 

"  I  suppose,"  March  suggested,  "  that  he's  got  money 
enough,  so  that  he  don't  care  for  this — ' 

"  Pshaw !  You're  a  poet !  Don't  you  know  that  the 
more  money  that  kind  of  man  has  got,  the  more  he 
cares  for  money  ?  It's  some  fancy  of  his — like  having 
Lindau's  funeral  at  his  house —  By  Jings,  March,  I 
believe  you're  his  fancy!" 

"  Oh,  now!    Don't  you  be  a  poet,  Fulkerson!" 

"I  do !  He  seemed  to  take  a  kind  of  shine  to  you 
from  the  day  you  wouldn't  turn  off  old  Lindau;  he 
did,  indeed.  It  kind  of  shook  him  up.  It  made  him 
think  you  had  something  in  you.  He  was  deceived  by 
appearances.  Look  here !  I'm  going  round  to  see  Mrs. 
March  with  you,  and  explain  the  thing  to  her.  I  know 
Mrs.  March !  She  wouldn't  believe  you  knew  what  you 
were  going  in  for.  She  has  a  great  respect  for  your 
mind,  but  she  don't  think  you've  got  any  sense. 
Heigh?" 

"  All  right,"  said  March,  glad  of  the  notion ;  and 
it  was  really  a  comfort  to  have  F^ulkerson  with  him  to 
develop  all  the  points ;  and  it  was  delightful  to  see  how 
clearly  and  quickly  she  seized  them;  it  made  March 
proud  of  her.  She  was  only  angry  that  they  had  lost 
any  time  in  coming  to  submit  so  plain  a  case  to  her. 

502 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Mr.  Dryfoos  might  change  his  mind  in  the  night,  and 
then  everything  would  be  lost.  They  must  go  to  him 
instantly,  and  tell  him  that  they  accepted;  they  must 
telegraph  him. 

"  Might  as  well  send  a  district  messenger ;  he'd  get 
there  next  week,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  No,  no!  It  Ml 
all  keep  till  to-morrow,  and  be  the  better  for  it.  If 
he's  got  this  fancy  for  March,  as  I  say,  he  ain't  agoing 
to  change  it  in  a  single  night.  People  don't  change 
their  fancies  for  March  in  a  lifetime.  Heigh?" 

When  Fulkerson  turned  up  very  early  at  the  office 
next  morning,  as  March  did,  he  was  less  strenuous 
about  Dryfoos's  fancy  for  March.  It  was  as  if  Miss 
Woodburn  might  have  blown  cold  upon  that  theory,  as 
something  unjust  to  his  own  merit,  for  which  she  would 
naturally  be  more  jealous  than  he. 

March  told  him  what  he  had  forgotten  to  tell  him 
the  day  before,  though  he  had  been  trying,  all  through 
their  excited  talk,  to  get  it  in,  that  the  Dryfooses  were 
going  abroad. 

"Oh,  ho!"  cried  Fulkerson.  "That's  the  milk  in 
the  cocoanut,  is  it  ?  Well,  I  thought  there  must  be 
something." 

But  this  fact  had  not  changed  Mrs.  March  at  all  in 
her  conviction  that  it  was  Mr.  Dryfoos's  fancy  for  her 
husband  which  had  moved  him  to  make  him  this  ex 
traordinary  offer,  and  she  reminded  him  that  it  had 
first  been  made  to  him,  without  regard  to  Fulkerson. 
"  And  perhaps,"  she  went  on,  "  Mr.  Dryfoos  has  been 
changed — softened;  and  doesn't  find  money  all  in  all 
any  more.  He's  had  enough  to  change  him,  poor  old 
man!" 

"  Does  anything  from  without  change  us  ?"  her  hus 
band  mused  aloud.  "  We're  brought  up  to  think  so  by 

the  novelists,  who  really  have  the  charge  of  people's 
37  5C3 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

thinking,  nowadays.  But  I  doubt  it,  especially  if  the 
thing  outside  is  some  great  event,  something  cata- 
clysmal,  like  this  tremendous  sorrow  of  Dryfoos's." 

"  Then  what  is  it  that  changes  us  ?"  demanded  his 
wife,  almost  angry  with  him  for  his  heresy. 

"  Well,  it  won't  do  to  say,  the  Holy  Spirit  indwell 
ing.  That  would  sound  like  cant  at  this  day.  But  the 
old  fellows  that  used  to  say  that  had  some  glimpses  of 
the  truth.  They  knew  that  it  is  the  still,  small  voice 
that  the  soul  heeds,  not  the  deafening  blasts  of  doom. 
I  suppose  I  should  have  to  say  that  we  didn't  change 
at  all.  We  develop.  There's  the  making  of  several 
characters  in  each  of  us ;  we  are  each  several  char 
acters,  and  sometimes  this  character  has  the  lead  in 
us,  and  sometimes  that.  From  what  Fulkerson  has 
told  me  of  Dryfoos,  I  should  say  he  had  always  had 
the  potentiality  of  better  things  in  him  than  he  has 
ever  been  yet;  and  perhaps  the  time  has  come  for  the 
good  to  have  its  chance.  The  growth  in  one  direction 
has  stopped ;  it's  begun  in  another ;  that's  all.  The 
man  hasn't  been  changed  by  his  son's  death ;  it  stunned, 
it  benumbed  him ;  but  it  couldn't  change  him.  It  was 
an  event,  like  any  other,  and  it  had  to  happen  as  much 
as  his  being  born.  It  was  forecast  from  the  beginning 
of  time,  and  was  as  entirely  an  effect  of  his  coming  into 
the  world — " 

"  Basil !  Basil !"  cried  his  wife.    "  This  is  fatalism !" 

"  Then  you  think,"  he  said,  "  that  a  sparrow  falls  to 
the  ground  without  the  will  of  God?"  and  he  laughed 
provokingly.  But  he  went  on  more  soberly :  "  I  don't 
know  what  it  all  means,  Isabel,  though  I  believe  it 
means  good.  What  did  Christ  himself  say  ?  That  if 
one  rose  from  the  dead  it  would  not  avail.  And  yet 
we  are  always  looking  for  the  miraculous!  I  believe 
that  unhappy  old  man  truly  grieves  for  his  son,  whom 

564 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

he  treated  cruelly  without  the  final  intention  of  cruelty, 
for  he  loved  him  and  wished  to  be  proud  of  him;  but 
I  don't  think  his  death  has  changed  him,  any  more 
than  the  smallest  event  in  the  chain  of  events  remotely 
working  through  his  nature  from  the  beginning.  But 
why  do  you  think  he's  changed  at  all?  Because  he 
offers  to  sell  me  Every  Other  Week  on  easy  terms  ?  He 
says  himself  that  he  has  no  further  use  for  the  thing; 
and  he  knows  perfectly  well  that  he  couldn't  get  his 
money  out  of  it  now,- without  an  enormous  shrinkage. 
He  couldn't  appear  at  this  late  day  as  the  owner,  and 
sell  it  to  anybody  but  Fulkerson  and  me  for  a  fifth 
of  what  it's  cost  him.  He  can  sell  it  to  us  for  all  it's 
cost  him;  and  four  per  cent,  is  no  bad  interest  on  his 
money  till  we  can  pay  it  back.  It's  a  good  thing  for 
us;  but  we  have  to  ask  whether  Dryfoos  has  done  us 
the  good,  or  whether  it's  the  blessing  of  Heaven.  If 
it's  merely  the  blessing  of  Heaven,  I  don't  propose 
being  grateful  for  it." 

March  laughed  again,  and  his  wife  said,  "  It's  dis 
gusting." 

"  It's  business,"  he  assented.  "  Business  is  business ; 
but  I  don't  say  it  isn't  disgusting.  Lindau  had  a  low 
opinion  of  it." 

"  I  think  that  with  all  his  faults  Mr.  Dryfoos  is  a 
better  man  than  Lindau,"  she  proclaimed. 

"  Well,  he's  certainly  able  to  offer  us  a  better  thing 
in  Every  Other  Week"  said  March. 

She  knew  he  was  enamoured  of  the  literary  finish  of 
his  cynicism,  and  that  at  heart  he  was  as  humbly  and 
truly  grateful  as  she  was  for  the  good-fortune  opening 
to  them. 


XVII 

BEATON  was  at  his  best  when  he  parted  for  the  last 
lime  with  Alma  Leighton,  for  he  saw  then  that  what 
had  happened  to  him  was  the  necessary  consequence  of 
Avhat  he  had  been,  if  not  what  he  had  done.  Afterward 
he  lost  this  clear  vision ;  he  began  to  deny  the  fact ;  he 
drew  upon  his  knowledge  of  life,  and  in  arguing  him 
self  into  a  different  frame  of  mind  he  alleged  the  case 
of  different  people  who  had  done  and  been  ranch  worse 
things  than  he,  and  yet  no  such  disagreeable  conse 
quence  had  befallen  them.  Then  he  saw  that  it  was 
all  the  work  of  blind  chance,  and  he  said  to  himself 
that  it  was  this  that  made  him  desperate,  and  willing 
to  call  evil  his  good,  and  to  take  his  own  wherever  he 
could  find  it.  There  was  a  great  deal  that  was  literary 
and  factitious  and  tawdry  in  the  mood  in  which  he 
went  to  see  Christine  Dryfoos,  the  night  when  the 
Marches  sat  talking  their  prospects  over;  and  nothing 
that  was  decided  in  his  purpose.  He  knew  what  the 
drift  of  his  mind  was,  but  he  had  always  preferred  to 
let  chance  determine  his  events,  and  now  since  chance 
had  played  him  such  an  ill  turn  with  Alma,  he  left  it 
the  whole  responsibility.  2s"ot  in  terms,  but  in  effect, 
this  was  his  thought  as  he  walked  on  up-town  to  pay 
the  first  of  the  visits  which  Dryfoos  had  practically 
invited  him  to  resume.  He  had  an  insolent  satisfaction 
in  having  delayed  it  so  long;  if  he  was  going  back  he 
was  going  back  on  his  own  conditions,  and  these  were 

56G 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

to  be  as  hard  and  humiliating  as  he  could  make  them. 
But  this  intention  again  was  inchoate,  floating,  the 
stuff  of  an  intention,  rather  than  intention;  an  ex 
pression  of  temperament  chiefly. 

He  had  been  expected  before  that.  Christine  had 
got  out  of  Mela  that  her  father  had  been  at  Beaton's 
studio,  and  then  she  had  gone  at  the  old  man  and  got 
from  him  every  smallest  fact  of  the  interview  there. 
She  had  flung  back  in  his  teeth  the  good-will  toward 
herself  with  which  he  had  gone  to  Beaton.  She  was 
furious  with  shame  and  resentment;  she  told  him  he 
had  made  bad  worse,  that  he  had  made  a  fool  of  him 
self  to  no  end ;  she  spared  neither  his  age  nor  his  grief- 
broken  spirit,  in  which  his  will  could  not  rise  against 
hers.  She  filled  the  house  with  her  rage,  screaming  it 
out  upon  him;  but  when  her  fury  was  once  spent,  she 
began  to  have  some  hopes  from  what  her  father  had 
done.  She  no  longer  kept  her  bed;  every  evening  she 
dressed  herself  in  the  dress  Beaton  admired  the  most, 
and  sat  up  till  a  certain  hour  to  receive  him.  She  had 
fixed  a  day  in  her  own  mind  before  which,  if  he  came, 
she  would  forgive  him  all  he  had  made  her  suffer:  the 
mortification,  the  suspense,  the  despair.  Beyond  this, 
she  had  the  purpose  of  making  her  father  go  to  Europe ; 
she  felt  that  she  could  no  longer  live  in  America,  with 
the  double  disgrace  that  had  been  put  upon  her. 

Beaton  rang,  and  while  the  servant  was  coming  the 
insolent  caprice  seized  him  to  ask  for  the  young  ladies 
instead  of  the  old  man,  as  he  had  supposed  of  course 
he  should  do.  The  maid  who  answered  the  bell,  in  the 
place  of  the  reluctant  Irishman  of  other  days,  had  all 
his  hesitation  in  admitting  that  the  young  ladies  were 
at  home. 

He  found  Mela  in  the  drawing-room.  At  sight  of 
him  she  looked  scared ;  but  she  seemed  to  be  reassured 

567 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

by  his  calm.  He  asked  if  he  was  not  to  have  the  pleas 
ure  of  seeing  Miss  Dryfoos,  too;  and  Mela  said  she 
reckoned  the  girl  had  gone  up-stairs  to  tell  her.  Mela 
was  in  black,  and  Beaton  noted  how  well  the  solid  sable 
became  her  rich  red-blonde  beauty:  he  wondered  what 
the  effect  would  be  with  Christine. 

But  she,  when  she  appeared,  was  not  in  mourning. 
He  fancied  that  she  wore  the  lustrous  black  silk,  with 
the  breadths  of  white  Venetian  lace  about  the  neck 
which  he  had  praised,  because  he  praised  it.  Her 
cheeks  burned  with  a  Jacqueminot  crimson;  what 
should  be  white  in  her  face  was  chalky  white.  She 
carried  a  plumed  ostrich  fan,  black  and  soft,  and  after 
giving  him  her  hand,  sat  down  and  waved  it  to  and  fro 
slowly,  as  he  remembered  her  doing  the  night  they  first 
met.  She  had  no  ideas,  except  such  as  related  intimate 
ly  to  herself,  and  she  had  no  gabble,  like  Mela;  and 
she  let  him  talk.  It  was  past  the  day  when  she  prom 
ised  herself  she  would  forgive  him;  but  as  he  talked 
on  she  felt  all  her  passion  for  him  revive,  and  the 
conflict  of  desires,  the  desire  to  hate,  the  desire  to  love, 
made  a  dizzying  whirl  in  her  brain.  She  looked  at  him, 
half  doubting  whether  he  was  really  there  or  not.  He 
had  never  looked  so  handsome,  with  his  dreamy  eyes 
floating  under  his  heavy  overhanging  hair,  and  his 
pointed  brown  beard  defined  against  his  lustrous  shirt- 
front.  His  mellowly  modulated,  mysterious  voice  lull 
ed  her;  when  Mela  made  an  errand  out  of  the  room, 
and  Beaton  crossed  to  her  and  sat  down  by  her,  she 
shivered. 

"  Are  you  cold  ?"  he  asked,  and  she  felt  the  cruel 
mockery  and  exultant  consciousness  of  power  in  his 
tone,  as  perhaps  a  wild  thing  feels  captivity  in  the 
voice  of  its  keeper.  But  now,  she  said  she  would  stil] 
forgive  him  if  he  asked  her. 

568 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

Mela  came  back,  and  the  talk  fell  again  to  the  former 
level;  but  Beaton  had  not  said  anything  that  really 
meant  what  she  wished,  and  she  saw  that  he  intended 
to  say  nothing.  Her  heart  began  to  burn  like  a  fire  in 
her  breast. 

"  You  been  tellun'  him  about  our  goun'  to  Europe  ?" 
Mela  asked. 

"  No/'  said  Christine,  briefly,  and  looking  at  the  fan 
spread  out  on  her  lap. 

Beaton  asked  when;  and  then  he  rose,  and  said  if 
it  was  so  soon,  he  supposed  he  should  not  see  them 
again,  unless  he  saw  them  in  Paris;  he  might  very 
likely  run  over  during  the  summer.  He  said  to  him 
self  that  he  had  given  it  a  fair  trial  with  Christine,  and 
he  could  not  make  it  go. 

Christine  rose,  with  a  kind  of  gasp,  and  mechanical 
ly  followed  him  to  the  door  of  the  drawing-room ;  Mela 
came,  too;  and  while  he  was  putting  on  his  overcoat, 
she  gurgled  and  bubbled  in  good-humor  with  all  the 
world.  Christine  stood  looking  at  him,  and  thinking 
how  still  handsomer  he  was  in  his  overcoat;  and  that 
fire  burned  fiercer  in  her.  She  felt  him  more  than  life 
to  her  and  knew  him  lost,  and  the  frenzy  that  makes  a 
woman  kill  the  man  she  loves,  or  fling  vitriol  to  destroy 
the  beauty  she  cannot  have  for  all  hers,  possessed  her 
lawless  soul.  He  gave  his  hand  to  Mela,  and  said,  in 
his  wind-harp  stop,  "  Good-bye." 

As  he  put  out  his  hand  to  Christine,  she  pushed  it- 
aside  with  a  scream  of  rage ;  she  flashed  at  him,  and 
with  both  hands  made  a  feline  pass  at  the  face  he  bent 
toward  her.  He  sprang  back,  and  after  an  instant  of 
stupefaction  he  pulled  open  the  door  behind  him  and 
ran  out  into  the  street. 

"  Well,  Christine  Dryfoos !"  said  Mela.     "  Spag  at 

him  like  a  wild-cat !" 

569 


A    HAZARD     OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

"  I  don't  care,"  Christine  shrieked.  "  I'll  tear  his 
eves  out !"  She  flew  up-stairs  to  her  own  room,  and 
left  the  burden  of  the  explanation  to  Mela,  who  did 
it  justice. 

Beaton  found  himself,  he  did  not  know  how,  in  his 
studio,  reeking  with  perspiration  and  breathless.  He 
must  almost  have  run.  Pie  struck  a  match  with  a 
shaking  hand,  and  looked  at  his  face  in  the  glass.  He 
expected  to  see  the  bleeding  marks  of  her  nails  on  his 
cheeks,  but  he  could  see  nothing.  He  grovelled  in 
wardly  ;  it  was  all  so  low  and  coarse  and  vulgar ;  it  was 
all  so  just  and  apt  to  his  deserts. 

There  was  a  pistol  among  the  dusty  bric-a-brac  on 
the  mantel  which  he  had  kept  loaded  to  fire  at  a  cat 
in  the  area.  He  took  it  and  sat  looking  into  the  muz 
zle,  wishing  it  might  go  off  by  accident  and  kill  him. 
It  slipped  through  his  hand  and  struck  the  floor,  and 
there  was  a  report ;  he  sprang  into  the  air,  feeling  that 
he  had  been  shot.  But  he  found  himself  still  alive, 
with  only  a  burning  line  along  his  cheek,  such  as  one 
of  Christine's  finger-nails  might  have  left. 

He  laughed  with  cynical  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
he  had  got  his  punishment  in  the  right  way,  and  that 
his  case  was  not  to  be  dignified  into  tragedy. 


XVIII 

THE  Marches,  with  Fulkerson,  went  to  see  the  Dry- 
fooses  off  on  the  French  steamer.  There  was  no  longer 
any  business  obligation  on  them  to  be  civil,  and  there 
was  greater  kindness  for  that  reason  in  the  attention 
they  offered.  Every  Other  Week  had  been  made  over 
to  the  joint  ownership  of  March  and  Fulkerson,  and 
the  details  arranged  with  a  hardness  on  Dryfoos's  side 
which  certainly  left  Mrs.  March  with  a  sense  of  his 
incomplete  regeneration.  Yet  when  she  saw  him  there 
on  the  steamer,  she  pitied  him;  he  looked  wearied  and 
bewildered;  even  his  wife,  with  her  twitching  head, 
and  her  prophecies  of  evil,  croaked  hoarsely  out,  while 
she  clung  to  Mrs.  March's  hand  where  they  sat  together 
till  the  leave-takers  were  ordered  ashore,  was  less  pa 
thetic.  Mela  was  looking  after  both  of  them,  and  try 
ing  to  cheer  them  in  a  joyful  excitement.  "  I  tell 
'em  it's  goun'  to  add  ten  years  to  both  their  lives,"  she 
said.  "  The  voyage  '11  do  their  healths  good ;  and  then, 
we're  gittun'  away  from  that  miser'ble  pack  o'  servants 
that  was  eatun'  us  up,  there  in  ^Tew  York.  I  hate  the 
place !"  she  said,  as  if  they  had  already  left  it.  "  Yes, 
Mrs.  Mandel's  goun',  too,"  she  added,  following  the 
direction  of  Mrs.  March's  eyes  where  they  noted  Mrs. 
Mandel  speaking  to  Christine  on  the  other  side  of  the 
cabin.  "  Her  and  Christine  had  a  kind  of  a  spat,  and 
she  was  goun'  to  leave,  but  here  only  the  other  day 
Christine  offered  to  make  it  up  with  her,  and  now 

571 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

they're  as  thick  as  thieves.  Well,  I  reckon  we  couMiM 
very  well  'a'  got  along  without  her.  She's  about  the 
only  one  that  speaks  French  in  this  family." 

Mrs.  March's  eyes  still  dwelt  upon  Christine's  face ; 
it  was  full  of  a  furtive  wildness.  She  seemed  to  be 
keeping  a  watch  to  prevent  herself  from  looking  as  if 
she  were  looking  for  some  one.  "  Do  you  know,"  Mrs. 
March  said  to  her  husband  as  they  jingled  along  home 
ward  in  the  Christopher  Street  bob-tail  car,  "  I  thought 
she  was  in  love  with  that  detestable  Mr.  Beaton  of 
yours  at  one  time;  and  that  he  was  amusing  himself 
with  her." 

"  I  can  bear  a  good  deal,  Isabel,"  said  March,  "  but 
I  wish  you  wouldn't  attribute  Beaton  to  me.  He's  the 
invention  of  that  Mr.  Fnlkerson  of  yours." 

"  Well,  at  any  rate,  I  hope,  now,  you'll  both  get  rid 
of  him,  in  the  reforms  you're  going  to  carry  out." 

These  reforms  were  for  a  greater  economy  in  the 
management  of  Every  Other  W-eek;  but  in  their  very 
nature  they  could  not  include  the  suppression  of  Bea 
ton.  He  had  always  shown  himself  capable  and  loyal 
to  the  interests  of  the  magazine,  and  both  the  new 
owners  were  glad  to  keep  him.  He  was  glad  to  stay, 
though  he  made  a  gruff  pretence  of  indifference,  when 
they  came  to  look  over  the  new  arrangement  with  him. 
In  his  heart  he  knew  that  he  was  a  fraud ;  but  at  least 
he  could  say  to  himself  with  truth  that  he  had  not  now 
the  shame  of  taking  Dryfoos's  money. 

March  and  Fulkerson  retrenched  at  several  points 
where  it  had  seemed  indispensable  to  spend,  as  long 
as  they  were  not  spending  their  own :  that  was  only 
human.  Fulkerson  absorbed  Conrad's  department  into 
his,  and  March  found  that  he  could  dispense  with 
Kendricks  in  the  place  of  assistant  which  he  had  late 
ly  filled  since  Fulkerson  had  decided  that  March  \v;is 

572 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

overworked.  They  reduced  the  number  of  illustrated 
articles,  and  they  systematized  the  payment  of  con 
tributors  strictly  according  to  the  sales  of  each  number, 
on  their  original  plan  of  co-operation:  they  had  got  to 
paying  rather  lavishly  for  material  without  reference 
to  the  sales. 

Fulkerson  took  a  little  time  to  get  married,  and  went 
on  his  wedding  journey  out  to  Niagara,  and  down  the 
St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec  over  the  line  of  travel  that  the 
Marches  had  taken  on  their  wedding  journey,  lie  had 
the  pleasure  of  going  from  Montreal  to  Quebec  on  the 
same  boat  on  which  he  first  met  March. 

They  have  continued  very  good  friends,  and  their 
wives  are  almost  without  the  rivalry  that  usually  em 
bitters  the  wives  of  partners.  At  first  Mrs.  March  did 
not  like  Mrs.  Fulkerson's  speaking  of  her  husband  a? 
the  Ownah,  and  March  as  the  Edito' ;  but  it  appeared 
that  this  was  only  a  convenient  method  of  recognizing 
the  predominant  quality  in  each,  and  was  meant  neither 
to  affirm  nor  to  deny  anything.  Colonel  Woodburn 
offered  as  his  contribution  to  the  celebration  of  the  co 
partnership,  which  Fulkerson  could  not  be  prevented 
from  dedicating  with  a  little  dinner,  the  story  of  Ful- 
kerson's  magnanimous  behavior  in  regard  to  Dryfoos 
at  that  crucial  moment  when  it  was  a  question  whether 
he  shouM  give  up  Dryfoos  or  give  up  March.  Fulker- 
son  winced  at  it ;  but  Mrs.  March  told  her  husband  that 
now,  whatever  happened,  she  should  never  have  any 
misgivings  of  Fulkerson  again;  and  she  asked  him  if 
he  did  not  think  he  ought  to  apologize  to  him  for  the 
doubts  with  which  he  had  once  inspired  her.  March 
said  that  he  did  not  think  so. 

The  Fulkersons  spent  the  summer  at  a  seaside  hotel 
in  easy  reach  of  the  city;  but  they  returned  early  to 
Mrs.  Leighton's,  with  whom  they  are  to  board  till 

573 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW    FORTUNES 

spring,  when  they  are  going  to  fit  up '  Fulkerson's 
bachelor  apartment  for  housekeeping.  Mrs.  March, 
with  her  Boston  scruple,  thinks  it  will  be  odd,  living 
over  the  Every  Oilier  Week  offices;  but  there  will  be 
a  separate  street  entrance  to  the  apartment;  and  be 
sides,  in  New  York  you  may  do  anything. 

The  future  of  the  Leightons  promises  no  immediate 
change.  Kendricks  goes  there  a  good  deal  to  see  the 
Fulkersons,  and  Mrs.  Fulkerson  says  he  comes  to  see 
Alma.  He  has  seemed  taken  with  her  ever  since  he 
first  met  her  at  Dryfoos's,  the  day  of  Lindau's  funeral, 
and  though  Fulkerson  objects  to  dating  a  fancy  of  that 
kind  from  an  occasion  of  that  kind,  he  justly  argues 
with  March  that  there  can  be  no  harm  in  it,  and  that 
we  are  liable  to  be  struck  by  lightning  any  time.  In 
the  mean  while  there  is  no  proof  that  Alma  returns 
Kendricks's  interest,  if  he  feels  any.  She  has  got  a 
little  bit  of  color  into  the  fall  exhibition;  but  the  fall 
exhibition  is  never  so  good  as  the  spring  exhibition. 
Wetmore  is  rather  sorry  she  has  succeeded  in  this, 
though  he  promoted  her  success.  He  says  her  real 
hope  is  in  black  and  white,  and  it  is  a  pity  for  her  to 
lose  sight  of  her  original  aim  of  drawing  for  illus 
tration. 

News  has  come  from  Paris  of  the  engagement  of 
Christine  Dryfoos.  There  the  Dryfooses  met  with  the 
success  denied  them  in  Xew  York;  many  American 
plutocrats  must  await  their  apotheosis  in  Europe,  where 
society  has  them,  as  it  were,  in  a  translation.  Shortly 
after  their  arrival  they  were  celebrated  in  the  news 
papers  as  the  first  millionaire  American  family  of 
natural-gas  extraction  who  had  arrived  in  the  capital 
of  civilization;  and  at  a  French  watering-place  Chris 
tine  encountered  her  fate — a  nobleman  full  of  present 
debts  and  of  duels  in  the  past,  Fulkerson  says  the  old 

574 


A    HAZARD    OF    NEW     FORTUNES 

man  can  manage  the  debtor,  and  Christine  can  look  out 
for  the  duellist.  u  They  say  those  fellows  generally 
whip  their  wives.  He'd  better  not  try  it  with  Chris 
tine,  I  reckon,  unless  he's  practised  with  a  panther." 

One  day,  shortly  after  their  return  to  town  in  the 
autumn  from  the  brief  summer  outing  they  permitted 
themselves,  the  Marches  met  Margaret  Vance.  At  first 
they  did  not  know  her  in  the  dress  of  the  sisterhood 
which  she  wore ;  but  she  smiled  joyfully,  almost  gayly, 
on  seeing  them,  and  though  she  hurried  by  with  the 
sister  who  accompanied  her,  and  did  not  stay  to  speak, 
they  felt  that  the  peace  that  passcth  understanding  had 
looked  at  them  from  her  eyes. 

"  Well,  she  is  at  rest,  there  can't  be  any  doubt  of 
that,"  he  said,  as  he  glanced  round  at  the  drifting  black 
robe  which  followed  her  free,  nun-like  walk. 

"  Yes,  now  she  can  do  all  the  good  she  likes,"  sighed 
his  wife.  "  I  wonder — I  wonder  if  she  ever  told  his 
father  about  her  talk  with  poor  Conrad  that  day  he 
was  shot  ?" 

"  I  don't  know.  I  don't  care.  In  any  event,  it  would 
be  right.  She  did  nothing  wrong.  If  she  unwittingly 
sent  him  to  his  death,  she  sent  him  to  die  for  God's 
sake,  for  man's  sake." 

"  Yes— yes.     But  still- 

"  Well,  we  must  trust  that  look  of  hers." 


THE    END 


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